Italian Forces

RSI’s pilots: what fate?

IMC Archives

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