Vertical aerial-reconnaissance view of the Italian tanker “Portofino”, with a load of 2,200 tons of fuel, on fire in Benghazi harbor following an attack by aircraft of the USAAF in the evening of 6 November 1942, a great loss for the Axis forces during the final phase of the battle of El Alamein. The movement of the “Portofino”, as of other Italian transport ships like the tankers “Proserpina” and “Luisiana”, and the cargo “Tergestea”, all sunk on the previous days, were well known by the British commands thanks the decryption through Ultra of the messages transmitted from the Germany embassy in Rome to the OKW in Berlin. Victor Sierra

An Ultra’s victim

The same soldiers of the previous photo standing in front to another MC.200 “Sattea” abandoned on Benghazi airfield, Libya, November 1942. The plane of this photo, 37th Squadriglia, experienced likely a belly landing with engine running. Note in fact all the three propeller’s blades crushed by the scratch over the ground. Victor Sierra

Australian soldiers and “Saetta”

Italian Regia Aeronautica and RAF’s high ranks greeting the crews of the Stormo Baltimore, the Italian co-belligerent Air Force bomber squadron established on 1st July 1944 on Campo Vesuvio airfield, near Naples, and equipped with former RAF Martin Baltimore and personnel of pre-armistice Regia Aeronautica’s former torpedo aircraft and bombardment units. The Stormo, first commander Ten. Col. (Lt. Col.) Noziglia replaced afterwards by the Lt. Col. Roveda, was composed by two Gruppi: 132nd Gruppo (commander Maggiore Massimiliano Erasi) with 253nd Squadriglia (Cap. Marescalchi) and 281st Squadriglia (Cap. Giulio Cesare Graziani), and 28th Gruppo (commander Maggiore Carlo Emanuele Buscaglia replaced by Ten. Col. Moci after his death on a take-off accident with a Baltimore) with 19th Squadriglia (Ten. Sanseverino) and 260th Squadriglia (Cap. Scapellato). After the training, August-October 1944, 50 pilots qualified on the Baltimore, total 1,390 h/flights, average 28 hours/day, some accidents and incidents caused by the diversity of the airplane respect the Italian aircrafts, on 11 November 1944, the Stormo Baltimore’s 132nd Gruppo was transferred at Campomarino, near Termoli, Province of Campobasso, Molise, and assigned effectively to Balkan Air Force’s 254th Wing. On 3 December 1944 at Campomarino arrived also the 28th Gruppo and so the Stormo Baltimore’s structure was complete with four Squadriglie each with eight Baltimore. Victor Sierra