Qualla: Bombing of Plaza de Mayo

Bombing of Plaza de Mayo: Introduction

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kevin Gabbert - User: (WT-shared) Kevin James at wts wikivoyage, Public domain. The first bomb fell on a trolleybus full of children, and killed everyone aboard. It was just past midday on 16 June 1955, in the very heart of Buenos Aires, when thirty aircraft of the Argentine Navy and Air Force appeared over Plaza de Mayo and began to bomb and strafe the square. Their target was the Casa Rosada and the man inside it, President Juan Perón. But the people who died that day were overwhelmingly ordinary civilians — office workers and union members, passers-by, parents, and the children on that trolley — caught in the open in the middle of an ordinary working afternoon.

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Image: Kevin Gabbert - User: (WT-shared) Kevin James at wts wikivoyage | Public domain

Bombing of Plaza de Mayo: A Country at the Breaking Point

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Sergio Moises Panei Pitrau, CC BY-SA 4.0. Juan Perón had governed Argentina since his 1946 election victory, remaking the country with industrialization, nationalized railways, public works, and higher wages for workers who revered him. By 1955 he had been in power nine years, and his footing had grown unsteady. The deat...

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Image: Sergio Moises Panei Pitrau | CC BY-SA 4.0

Bombing of Plaza de Mayo: The Attack

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Germanramos, CC BY-SA 4.0. At 12:40 in the afternoon, a force of thirty naval aircraft — among them North American AT-6 trainers, Beechcraft AT-11s, and lumbering Catalina flying boats — lifted off from Morón Air Base. Perón had been warned and was urged into a bunker beneath a nearby building. Two compani...

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Image: Germanramos | CC BY-SA 4.0

Bombing of Plaza de Mayo: The Crowd in the Square

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Diario La Razón, Public domain. As workers poured out of the central subway and filled the streets around the Presidential Palace, the rebel aircraft — propeller-driven AT-6 trainers and lumbering flying boats — bombed and strafed civilians gathered in the open, then circled and struck again. Later in the after...

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Image: Diario La Razón | Public domain

Bombing of Plaza de Mayo: Counting the Dead

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit (WT-en) Cjfrey at English Wikivoyage, Public domain. The full toll has never been settled, and that uncertainty is itself part of the wound — some of the dead could never be identified. The number of identified bodies was placed at 308, including six children, which by several accounts makes the day the deadliest such attack in Arg...

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Image: (WT-en) Cjfrey at English Wikivoyage | Public domain

Bombing of Plaza de Mayo: What Came After

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Alexia9399, CC BY-SA 4.0. The coup that day failed. Defeated in the air and on the ground, the rebel pilots were ordered to fly to Uruguay and seek asylum, dropping their remaining bombs along the way; most landed at Carrasco, and one Meteor ditched in the Río de la Plata, its pilot pulled from the water ...

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Image: Alexia9399 | CC BY-SA 4.0