One of the very few, about thirty, Messerschmitt Bf 109Gs, perhaps of 150th Gruppo Caccia, deployed by Italian Regia Aeronautica on the last period of the war against the Allies taking off from a Sicilian airfield on Summer 1943. The most part of Regia Aeronautica’s Bf 109s was destroyed during the fierce raids of the Allied air forces in support to operations for the landing in Sicily. Early September 1943, on the eve of the announcement of the Italy’s armistice, the aircraft still in service with Regia Aeronautica were from 1,200 to 1,300, but the planes really able to combat were from 700 to 800 and many of obsolescent models. Victor Sierra

Very few

When the Italy entered in the war, 10 June 1940, the Air Force’s personnel were of 105.430 men off which 6,340 pilots (the personnel’s number include also the crewmember non pilots). In the same time the Regia Aeronautica the number of combat aircraft were 3,296: 1,332 bombers, 1,160 fighter/assault aircraft, 497 reconnaissance land planes, 307 reconnaissance maritime planes, plus about a thousand of other aircrafts for other duties as training, transport, liaison etc. But only the 54 percent of the active duty’s force were really combat ready with flight lines not standardized (for examples, four models of bombers and four models of fighters) and not of standards of German and enemies air forces (at the time of fighters monoplane with retractable landing gear, in line engine of over 1,000 HP of power, 20mm cannons or/and four/six machine guns, as Bf.109, Dewoitine D-520, Hurricane and Spitfire, the bulk of Italian fighter line was the biplane Fiat CR.42 and the absence of the radio were common). The situation of aeronautical industry was nothing much better. Total absence of engineering and of on advanced method of production, plus shortage of raw material, but also type of design obsolete: only 10.388 aircraft of all types produced from June 1940 to September 1943, when, for example, of the Hawker Hurricane was built more than units. In any case was impossible for the industry balance the loss which was heavy: a total of 9.423 aircraft lost for war actions, accidents or phasing out from 10 June 1940 until 8 September 1943. The same for the human life’s toll: more than 12,000 men killed (in combat and in accident), missed, died for other reasons (ex. diseases contracted on the front) and wounded. In the photo the wreck of a S.79 bomber completely burned and surrounded by Indian soldiers. Victor Sierra

A heavy toll

Before the war Malta was a classic stop of Italian airline’s seaplanes. In the photo the accident of an Ala Littoria’s Savoia Marchetti S.66 flying boat crashed in Marsa Bay, June 1935. Victor Sierra