Royal Australian Air Force and Italian ground crew personnel together at the Grottaglie airfield, Southern Italy, summer 1943. In the background a Curtiss P-40 Kittyhawk fighter aircraft of of No. 3 Squadron RAAF. According the caption of this official photo &quot;The spirit between these crews is most friendly&quot;.

Australians and Italians

Grottaglie airfield, summer Italy. 1943. Official caption of this photo: "Italian airmen at Grottaglie airfield in Italy, now in Allied hands, watch RAAF airmen of No. 3 (Kittyhawk) Squadron RAAF, unload supplies from a transport aircraft flown across from Sicily. These transport aircraft, flown by American, British, and Dominion pilots maintained an incessant shuttle service of supplies from the day allied troops landed in Italy". Note: today a the large airport of Grottaglie, near Taranto, in Puglia, is based the  Naval Air Station of Italian Navy with  AV-8B Harrier. Again there is the factory of Alenia Aeronautica for production of fuselage sections in carbon fiber of NBoeing 787 Dreamliner. Victor Sierra

C-47 unload supplies 

Sicily, Italy. September 1943. Wounded British soldiers being prepared for evacuation in a DH86 aircraft of No. 1 Air Ambulance Unit Royal Australian Air Force, which has been working at forward positions all through the Sicilian Campaign. Victor Sierra