Operation Rügen Destroys Guernica

April 26, 1937 - During the Spanish Civil War, aircraft from the German Condor Legion and Italian Corpo Truppe Volontarie (below) bomb the Republican town of Guernica in northern Spain as part of their support of Generalissimo Francisco Franco's Nationalist cause. Arriving in multiple waves, the bombers ignited a firestorm that destroyed the majority of the town and inflicted massive civilian casualties.

Planned as part of a larger campaign to capture the city of Bilbao, the attack appears to originally have been intended to destroy bridges and other infrastructure. Subsequent evidence suggests that the widespread bombing of the town may have been one of the first instances of "terror bombing." The attack has been preserved in popluar memory by Pablo Picasso's masterpiece, Guernica.

Photograph Courtesy of commons.wikimedia.org