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

Before the war

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

An Italian Regia Aeronautica’s S.79 over Malta on the first weeks of the war, Summer 1940. The first mission date back to 11 June 1940, the day after the Italy’s declaration of war to Great Britain and France when 35 aircraft raided La Valletta, Hal Far airfield and Kalafrana air harbor. The mission was duplicated on the afternoon of the same with 38 bombers. After this raids, the missions over Malta was limited to recce flights. This until 26 June when the Regia Aeronautica restarted the bombardment missions increasingly opposed by the fighters, still few, and by anti-aircraft artillery particularly redoubtable. On 7 July an Italian bomber was shot down in flames, on 24 July two others S.79s was shot down by the Gladiators, on the 13 July the first night bombardment of La Valletta by 8 S.79s (one shot down). And the escalation kept with day and night raids took also, for a brief time, by Cant-Z-1007bis. Victor Sierra