Guidonia (Rome), 4 October 1940: the King of Italy Victor Emmanuel III in visit to Regia Aeronautica’s Flight Research and Test Center. The Center’s commander, General Mario Bernasconi, explaining to the King the characteristics of the center or, perhaps, of a new plane not visible in the picture. The Air Force’s General on the left is the Regia Aeronautica’s chief of staff Francesco Pricolo while the Army’ General on the right is the first King’s aide-de-camp Paolo Puntoni. The aircraft behind the King is the prototype MM407 of the twin engine heavy fighter IMAM Ro.57. It’s a rainy day, a typical Autumn’s day, which seem a foreboding of the tragic conclusion of the disastrous adventure wherein the Duce with the complicity of the King and the acquiescence of the military leadership has threw the Italian people. Victor Sierra

In the rain

On 15 September 1943, one month prior the war’s declaration of the Kingdom of Italy to III Reich, the Regia Aeronautica chief of staff, General Renato Sandalli, meet the Air Commodore Robert Foster, Head of the Air Commission in Italy, fixing structure, operational procedures and control by the Allies of the Italian air units. An important date for the beginning of the Regia Aeronautica’s operations alongside the Allies in the war against the Germany during the Co-belligerence and the Liberation War. The Italian Air Force, at the date of October 1943 with less than 300 aircraft, but only the half suitable for active duties, under the Air Ministry based at Brindisi, was completely reorganized with an Air Staff and a Comando Unità Aerea (Air Unit Command) re-grouping all the flight units. This latter was organized inside a series of Raggruppamenti (Groupings), each with a number of Stormi and Gruppi Autonomi (Autonomous Grups) plus a Squadriglia Autonoma Volo (Autonomous Flight) depending from the Air Staff and a Comando Aeronautica della Sardegna (Sardinia’s Air Force Command). The Raggruppamenti was: Raggruppamento Caccia (Fighter Grouping) which included also the Re.2002 dive bomber, plus the Scuola Addestramento Caccia; Raggruppamento Bombardamento e Siluranti (Bomber and Torpedo Aircraft Grouping) in reality never employed for this duties, but only for dropping supplies to Italian and Jugoslav partisan forces on the Balkans (the co-belligerent Regia Aeronautica will return to bomb missions only on half 1944 after the delivery of the Martin Baltimore) included also an Autonomous Maritime Recce Group equipped with seaplanes; Raggruppamento Bombardamento e Trasporti (Bomber and Transport Grouping) employed only for transport missions in particular over the Balkans; Raggruppamento Idrovolanti (Seaplanes Grouping) with seaplanes all based in Apulia. This structure remained unchanged until the Autumn 1944 when was revised also following the placement (June 1944) under the new Balkan Air Force of the Italian air units largely re-equipped with British and American planes. In the photo Bomber and Torpedo Aircraft Grouping’s planes (Cant-Z-1007ter of the 190th Squadriglia, 86th Gruppo) in mission over the Balkans escorted by Macchi fighters of the Fighter Grouping. Victor Sierra



A new order of battle for the Italian Air Force

While the Regia Aeronautica’s men fighting in the War Liberation, other men, pilots and no pilots, done one’s duty in Northern Italy defending the Italian skies from the raid against the Italian town of the Allied bombers remaining, as the Italian Co-belligerent armed forces, beyond the civil war which steeped the Italy in blood after the Armistice and also after the end of the conflict. They was the men of the Aeronautica Nazionale Repubblicana, or ANR, the little, but well equipped Air Force of the Repubblica Sociale Italiana, or RSI, which fought not only against the Allied aircraft, but also against the Germans attempts of cancel their Italian identity and of enlist the Italian personnel into Luftwaffe absorbing the ANR within the same Luftwaffe. But what was the fate of this men after the surrender and the end of the war? For a few was tragic as the 1° Gruppo’s commander Adriano Visconti, murdered at Milan with the Lt. Stefanini just after the surrender, or Pietro Calistri, mistaken for the Mussolini’s pilot and shot by the partisan at Dongo. For many of them, after some weeks or months as POW of the Allies, the new life was the rebuilt Italian commercial aviation on the lookout of very experienced pilots and a lot of them will close the career as Boeing 747’s captain (as the ace Ugo Drago for ex.). Many other emigrated in Latin America mainly the Peron’s Argentina. But on early ‘50s the new Italian Air Force (Aeronautica Militare or AM), expanding in prospect of the strengthening of the alliance with USA and of the entry of Italian in the NATO, remembered this men and many of them was reinstated in regular service (but with the rank back the Armistice of the 8 September 1943) and not for no active duties (some will managed to piloting the first F-104Gs). Two name for all: the Spanish Civil War’ Italian ace and test pilot of all WW2 Italian fighters Adriano Mantelli (which I knew well) retired as General and the ace Mario Bellagambi (14 kills confirmed) which leaded the prestigious aerobatic team of the 51st Aerobrigata (Air Brigade) equipped with the F-84G and the Flight Unit of the 3rd Aerobrigata (RF-84F), was military attaché on the Tokyo’s Italian Embassy and retired as Brigadier General. (The picture show officers and NCOs, pilots and not, of the 1st Gruppo Caccia/Fighter Group on Campoformido, North-East Italy, January 1944. The plane is a Macchi MC.205) Victor Sierra