On the morning of October 28th, just hours after Italy declared war on Greece, the Italian air force bombarded Preveza. One bomb destroyed the archaeological museum and another landed in a coffee shop, fortunately without exploding. Over the next few months, as the Greek army pushed the Italians back towards Albania, the town was bombarded repeatedly (more than 100 times). On January 13th, a bomb killed four men of the Hellenic Naval Anti Aircraft battery on this spot. Almost five years later, on October 24th, 1945, the minesweeper “Pineios” struck a mine, as she was attempting to clear the entrance of the Ambracian gulf, and went down with the loss of 22 crew members near the same spot.