Supplies for the RAF wings operating from Grottaglie, Puglia, Italy, 1944, are unloaded from a Douglas Dakota of No. 216 Group RAF, using a commandeered Italian Fiat truck. In the foreground a South African Air Force officer lights a cigarette beside the wreckage of an Italian Fiat CR.42. Victor Sierra

Grottaglie 1944

Personnel of No. 92 Squadron RAF struggle to free one of their Supermarine Spitfire Mark VIIIs from the mud on the waterlogged landing ground at Canne, Apulia, Italy, 1944. At Canne, in area of famous Hannibal’s victory over Romans, August 216 bC, were also based Italian and Yugoslav air units embedded in Balkan Air Force. Victor Sierra

Hard work 

A Douglas Boston of 24 Squadron SAAF warming up its engines before a mission in the Western Desert from a Libyan airstrip, Spring 1943. Boston is the name assigned by the RAF and the other Commonwealth’s air forces to the American-built Douglas A-20 Havoc. Victor Sierra