Bombing of Plaza de Mayo

The Bombing of Plaza de Mayo was a massacre that took place in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on 16 June 1955. 30 aircraft from the Argentine Navy and Air Force strafed and bombed Plaza de Mayo square in Buenos Aires in the largest aerial bombing ever on the Argentine mainland. The attack targeted the adjacent Casa Rosada, the official seat of government, while a large crowd of protestors gathered to demonstrate support for President Juan Perón. The strike took place during a day of official public demonstrations to condemn the burning of a national flag allegedly carried out by detractors of Perón during the recent Corpus Christi procession. The military reacted as a result of growing tension between President Juan Perón and his actions against the Roman Catholic Church. The action was to be the first step in an eventually aborted coup d'état. The number of identified bodies was put at 308, including six children; an unknown number of victims could not be identified.

The disregard for civilian lives and the violence with which the act was carried out has prompted comparisons with the wave of state terrorism during the dictatorship of 1976-1983.

Background

President Juan Domingo Perón had been in power for nine years after winning the 1946 elections and had enacted many reformative policies that considerably changed Argentina. His first term was marked by isolationism, which saw a reduction in beef and wheat exports in favor of industrialization and modernization, which was undertaken to create a welfare state. Increased spending caused a drop in cash holdings and foreign earnings. His second term was plagued by problems with inflation, economic stalling, and striking, primarily for higher wages. His leadership style also drew heavy criticism from academics, clerics, and some elements of the Armed Forces. The death of his second wife, first lady Eva Perón, in July 1952 diminished his popular appeal and party support.

The attack

Bombing, strafing, and ground fighting

At 12:40, a force of thirty Argentine Naval Aviation airplanes, consisting of 22 North American AT-6, five Beechcraft AT-11, and three Consolidated PBY Catalina flying boats, took off from Morón Air Base. Perón had been warned of the movements beforehand by his Minister of War, Franklin Lucero, who advised him to retreat to a bunker under the Libertador Building.

The attack was carried out in the crowded city center on a weekday during working hours with no warning, leading to many civilian casualties. Civilians on public transport were among the first recorded victims. The first bomb dropped fell on a trolleybus packed with children, killing everyone on board.

Meanwhile, two companies of the rebel 4th Marine Infantry Battalion marched on the Casa Rosada intending to capture it. One was deployed 40m from the northern façade while the other took position in the Automóvil Club Argentino parking lot, between Colón Park and the Central Post Office, 100m from the rear. However, they were pushed back by members of the Regiment of Mounted Grenadiers from within the Casa Rosada and by Army troops marching from the sector of the Ministry of Finance, under the command of General Lucero. The defense of the Casa Rosada consisted of a mere two 12.7mm Browning M2 machine guns placed on the roof, while defenders on the lower floors only had access to small arms, including bolt-action Mauser 1909 rifles. Loyal troops were accompanied by Peronist civilians who took up arms.

At 13:12, union leader Héctor Hugo Di Pietro, acting head of the CGT due to the absence of its Secretary-General, spoke on national broadcasting calling all workers in the Federal District and Greater Buenos Aires to concentrate immediately around the CGT building to defend the constitutional government. Moreover, union officials were already mobilizing workers from factories around Buenos Aires towards the city center. Perón ordered his adjutant, major Jose Ignacio Cialceta, to inform Di Pietro that a clash strictly between soldiers was taking place and therefore civilians were not to gather in Plaza de Mayo. Historian Joseph Page claimed, citing a US Embassy report, that this order was not given until 16:00.

Consequently, the bulk of the civilian casualties occurred when large numbers of mobilized workers arrived in Plaza de Mayo to defend the presidency of Juan Perón. Gloster Meteor fighters suddenly arrived to bomb and strafe the large crowds of Peronist supporters exiting the central subway and gathering in the nearby streets and the immediate vicinity of the Presidential Palace, killing and wounding hundreds in the process.

According to police commissioner Rafael C. Pugliese, a police observation reported at 14:00, large numbers of civilians arrived in trucks to defend the Presidential Palace and gathered in the Paseo Colón and Belgrano pedestrian walkways around it, before being caught out in the open when the main air attacks took place at 15:00. The Gloster Meteors then bombed the survivors as they pulled up from their final dive bombing attacks and headed back to base.

The rebel ground offensive began to wane around 15:00, as the marines surrounding the Casa Rosada's northern façade came under fire from army artillery units positioned in a building located at the intersection of Leandro N. Alem and Viamonte streets. Olivieri contacted the Higher School of Mechanics of the Navy to request reinforcements, however, it was already surrounded by elements of the 1st Infantry Regiment.

The marines retreated in disarray towards the Ministry of the Navy, where they would remain under siege from loyal Army units until the end of hostilities that evening. Lucero ordered the use of heavy machine guns against the rebels, and 81mm mortars were brought in to reinforce the assault. At 15:17, after two telephone conversations between Olivieri and Lucero, the rebels waved a white flag from the Ministry of the Navy. However, when generals Carlos Wirth and Juan José Valle arrived in a jeep to discuss the terms of surrender, the second wave of air attacks began. The explosions destroyed two floors of the south wing of the Ministry of War, killing a soldier and a general. At the same time, an M4 Sherman fired on the second floor, causing a fire in the admirals' room.

Simultaneously, civilian commandos under Zavala Ortiz's orders began clashing with the police and sniping from the roofs of various buildings. Throughout the afternoon, rebel reinforcements coming from the Central Post building unsuccessfully tried to break the siege on the Ministry of the Navy building.

Aerial combat

As ground combat raged in the center of Buenos Aires, loyal forces were dispatched from Morón Air Base to intercept rebel fighters. Heated discussions took place among the pilots over the possibility of whether to join the coup or not. A squad of loyal Gloster Meteors took off and one of them shot down a rebel Navy AT-6 Texan over the Río de la Plata, scoring the first air-to-air kill of the Argentine Air Force. Another rebel warplane was downed by fire from hastily mounted anti-aircraft batteries.

In the meantime, Morón Air Base along with the loyal pilots were captured by anti-Peronist forces. Their Meteors were seized and pressed into service by the rebels, participating in strafing sorties until the final surrender. With the coup on the verge of failure, naval warplanes launched a second attack on the seat of government. Having run out of ordnance, one pilot dropped his auxiliary fuel tank as an ersatz incendiary bomb, which fell on the cars in a parking lot near the Casa Rosada.

Retreat and surrender

After heavy urban fighting, which included a false surrender incident, the besieged rebels finally opted for handing over the Ministry of the Navy to the Army units posted outside. Fire ceased at 17:20 local time. Between 9.5 and 13.8 tonnes of ordnance were dropped, killing between 150 and 364 people,Bombas sobre Buenos Aires: Gestación y desarollo del bombardeo aéreo sobre la Plaza de Mayo del 16 de junio de 1955, Daniel E. Cichero, p.163, Vergara Grupo Zeta, 2005. mostly civilians, and injuring over 800. Nine members of the Mounted Grenadiers Presidential Guard and five police officers were killed in action.

Faced with the failure of the intended coup, the rebel pilots received orders to head toward Uruguay to seek asylum. Around thirty civilian and military aircraft headed towards Carrasco Airport, continuing along the way to drop their bombs until they ran out of ammunition. Some pilots crash-landed in the Río de la Plata or the fields of Carmelo, having exhausted all their fuel during the attacks.

At 03:00 on 17 June, Olivieri, Toranzo Calderón, and Gargiulo, the three top leaders of the failed coup, were informed they were to be tried under martial law and were each offered a pistol to end their lives, which Olivieri and Toranzo Calderón declined. Gargiulo, however, accepted the offer and committed suicide in his office at 05:45.

Aftermath

That same night, Peronist crowds burnt eight churches, two basilicas, and the Curia office in revenge for the Catholic Church's support for the coup.

In September of that year, the bulk of the armed forces joined in a coup d'état known as the Revolución Libertadora, which overthrew President Perón and started a military dictatorship that lasted until the 1958 presidential elections, won by Arturo Frondizi of the UCRI. The Peronist party was not allowed to stand for election, but Frondizi's victory was aided by a pact between himself and Perón.

One of the rebel leaders, radical Miguel Ángel Zavala Ortiz, went on to serve as an official during the Revolución Libertadora dictatorship and was later appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs and Worship by President Arturo Illia in 1963.

One of the naval pilots who took part in the bombings, Máximo Rivero Kelly, was promoted and was second-in-command of the Argentine Navy during the presidency of Raúl Alfonsín. He would later claim that the naval aviation's target was the Presidential Palace but that an aircraft missed, causing about 20 civilian deaths.

Bullet and shrapnel marks remained visible on some buildings on the south side of the square as of 2020.

Casualties

Peronist sources claimed those killed to be around 400. In 1965, a journalist from “Extra” magazine claimed that once the fighting had ended near Plaza de Mayo, there lay two thousand dead''.''A 61 AÑOS DEL BOMBARDEO DE LA MASÓNICA REVOLUCIÓN "LIBERTADORA"
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On 22 June 1955, Commissioner Rafael C. Pugliese in the Official Police Report declared that the official death toll was 136, according to the identified and unidentified bodies being held in morgues of the various Buenos Aires hospitals. Medical centers that received bombing victims and helped with the identification and counting the death toll were: Public Assistance (62 dead), Argerich (45 dead), Rawson (3 dead), Clínicas (7 dead), Ramos Mejía (7 dead), Alemán (2 dead), Fernandez (3 dead), Policlínico del Ministerio de Hacienda (3 dead), Policlínico Militar (2 dead), Policlínico Rivadavia (1 dead) and Morgue Judicial (1 dead).

Of the 136 killed according to Pugliese's report, five were police officers: Senior Officer Alfredo Aulicino (head of the Personnel Section of the Communications Directorate), Sub-Inspector Rodolfo Nieto (1st Political Order Section), Agent José María Bacalja (1st Mechanical Workshop and Garage Section), Agent Ramón Alderete (Traffic Police Corps) and retired agent César Augusto Puchulu. The rebel and loyal military suffered a combined 44 casualties.16 de junio de 1955-2014 Malditos los que bombardearon impunemente la Plaza de Mayo hace 59 años
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See also

* List of massacres in Argentina
* Revolución Libertadora
* Tanquetazo, a similar failed coup attempt that preceded the 1973 Chilean coup d'etat

Notes

References

Bibliography

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External links

*
''El bombardeo de Plaza de Mayo''
* Galasso, Norberto (2005). ''Perón''. Ediciones Colihue.

{{DEFAULTSORT:Plaza de Mayo
History of Argentina (1943–1955)
History of Buenos Aires
Attempted coups in Argentina
1950s coups d'état and coup attempts
Mass murder in 1955
Conflicts in 1955
1955 in Argentina
Massacres in Argentina
1950s in Buenos Aires
June 1955 events in South America
Airstrikes conducted by Argentina
Explosions in 1955