Bombing of Plaza de Mayo

1955 failed military coup and attack of a pro Perón rally in Buenos Aires, Argentina

55 wounded
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The bombing of Plaza de Mayo was a massacre in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on 16 June 1955. Thirty aircraft from the Argentine Navy and Air Force strafed Plaza de Mayo. The attack targeted the adjacent Casa Rosada, the seat of government, while a large crowd demonstrated in support of the 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 Peron 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. Some victims could not be identified.

After his victory in the 1946 Argentine general election, President Perón had enacted many reformative policies that considerably changed Argentina, including embracing industrialization, nationalizing railroads, financing public works, and instituting material benefits for labor, such as higher wages. By 1955, he had spent nine years in power. His first term was marked by isolationism, with an emphasis on Argentine self sufficiency. The death of his second wife, first lady Eva Perón, in July 1952 had diminished his popular appeal and party support.

On 16 June 1955, at 12:40 pm, 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 General Franklin Lucero, Minister of War. Lucero had advised Perón to retreat into a bunker under the Libertador Building. As the first bomb fell on a trolleybus packed with children, it killed 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 40 meters 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. 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, in order to defend the constitutional government. Moreover, union officials were already mobilizing workers from factories around Buenos Aires towards the city center. 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. mostly civilians, and injuring over 800. Nine members of the Mounted Grenadiers Presidential Guard

Faced with the failure of the intended coup, the rebel pilots received orders to head toward Uruguay to seek asylum. At least 32 civilian and military aircraft headed towards Carrasco Airport, continuing along the way to drop their bombs until they ran out of ammunition. Most of them landed in Carrasco, and four others in Colonia. One Gloster Meteor crash landed in the Río de la Plata off Carmelo, having exhausted all its fuel during the attacks. The pilot was rescued by a local resident. The pilots were interned by the Uruguayan government until the fall of Perón in September. 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.

That same night, Peronist crowds burnt eight churches, two basilicas, and the Curia office in revenge for the Catholic Church's support to 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. Bullet and shrapnel marks remained visible on some buildings on the south side of the square as of 2023.

Peronist sources claim around 400 were killed. In 1965, a journalist from Extra magazine claimed that once the fighting had ended near Plaza de Mayo, there were around five hundred people either dead or heavily injured. On 22 June 1955, commissioner Rafael C. Pugliese in the Official Police Report put the official death toll at 136 after collating the number of identified as well as unidentified bodies in the morgues of various hospitals in Buenos Aires. The various medical centres that received victims and helped in identification and counting the deaths 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).