Guardistallo massacre

{{Short description|Nazi German massacre near Guardistallo, Tuscany in 1944}}

{{expand language|topic=|langcode=it|otherarticle=Eccidio di Guardistallo|date=May 2015}}

The Guardistallo massacre was a Nazi German act of reprisal that took place close to Guardistallo, in Tuscany. On 29 June 1944, 57 people were killed and buried in a mass grave. One of the victims died from wounds suffered in the same occasion a few days afterward.{{cite book|last1=Bosworth|title=Mussolini's Italy: Life Under the Fascist Dictatorship, 1915-1945|date=January 30, 2007|publisher=Penguin Group|isbn=978-0143038566|page=499|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Tm6uVwH03hAC&q=Guardistallo+Massacre&pg=PA499|access-date=15 May 2015}}

The cause of the massacre was suspected at the time to be a belief by German forces that Italian partisans had been hiding an American pilot who had been shot down in the area. A photoreconnaissance pilot from the 3rd Photorecon Group, 12th Air Force had, in fact, been downed by antiaircraft fire in the proceeding days and hidden by a resistance cell. He was successfully returned to Allied forces and survived the war.{{cite web |last1=Toomey |first1=David |title=Tall Tales & Vapor Trails - Recollections of a P-38 Pilot, by Lt. David Toomey, 12th AF, presentation given November 2010 |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCqxuPSTaXw |website=YouTube |date=28 May 2013 |access-date=13 November 2019}}{{cite web |last1=Toomey |first1=David |title=Can This P-38 Be Saved?, Smithsonian Magazine, November 2009|url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/air-space-magazine/can-this-p-38-be-saved-137693818/|website=Smithsonian Magazine|access-date=16 May 2022}}