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          WWII  1940-44    Naples is Bombed Day and Night
The honeycomb of caverns and passageways below are converted into air raid shelters under Mussolini's
 UMPA  or civil defense program. Whole families spent weeks below ground, often emerging into daylight
to find their homes and entire neighborhoods turned to rubble. . . so they returned to the cavernous shelters
to survive. Evidence of DC battery power, showers and crude health and kitchen facilities can still be seen
in many of the shelters. Guided tours are conducted on Sundays by LAES, a private group of speologists. It
is an incredible experience. Call Michele Quaranta if you are in Naples at: 400-256 or 552-3328

Hastily constructed stairwells  descend almost 200 feet into the improvised air raid shelters.	This shelter beneath Santa Anna di Palazzo was made from reinforcing an old cistern and is interconnected to other huge cavities.

After the war, the huge air raid shelters were abandoned and largely forgotten. Entrances were blocked by cave-ins and debris from destroyed buildings dumped down the entrance ways. Notice the porcelain insulators on the ceiling which carried emergence power for lighting. This chamber has been used as a dumping ground from a shaft reaching the surface. Neopolitans use the 'pozzi' or shafts as bottomless pits. . .out of sight out of mind! Fires started in some of the old caverns from torches carelessly tossed down shafts helped lead to their rediscovery by speologists helping firemen locate the fires burning in the bowels of the city !!

This is a reproduced photocopy of a photograph of some of the graffiti remaining in the below ground shelters. Gaffiare means 'to scratch' and is the origin of the word graffiti. The uniformed soldier and his girl with the 40's hairdo is actually scratched into the tufo sandstone walls in the shelter along with countless other telling mementos and statements from the time. Above a little niche in a wall which offered a bit of privacy for a honeymoon night is scratched:  "Anna E Renzo il 20 settembre 1943 si sposano" Anna and Renzo were married and honeymooned here Sept. 20, 1943 !!