Italian Forces

“Black Cat” POW

Australian War Memorial

An RAF Intelligence Officer (right) interrogates an Italian fighter pilot POW. The Italian is a pilot of the 51st Stormo “Black Cat”, one of most famous Regia Aeronautica’s fighter units (as seen by the patch on his Marus flight jacket). According the Australian War Memorial (AWM MED0176) the Italian pilot, rank unknown, was taken prisoner of war after he had crash-landed following a mid-air collision with a British Tomahawk aircraft, North Africa c.1942. Today the 51st Stormo, always the Black Cat capturing three green mouses over the tails, is a fighter-bomber-recce unit of Italian Air Force, based at Istrana, North-East Italy, and equipped with AMX employed also in Afghanistan (Task Group Black Cats) on Herat Air Base. Victor Sierra