Gear of VI. Italian Corps captured by German Gefechtsgruppe Schmidhuber. Yugoslavia, 1943

Italian gear captured

One of the few Fieseler Fi.156 Storch employed by the Italian Regia Aeronautica during the WW2 photographed in Libya. The first Italian Storch was the plane given by Hermann Göring to Air Marshal Italo Balbo, at this time, early 1939, Governor of the Libya, late Thirties, construction number 719, registered on 2 January 1939 as civil aircraft with the registration I-ULIA (Iulia was the surname of Balbo’s daughter Giuliana), former D-IGZN. After the Balbo’s death (28 June 1940) the I-ULIA was switched to Regia Aeronautica and registered as military aircraft. An Italian Storch was in the fleet of the co-belligerent Regia Aeronautica and employed by Lt. Furio Lauri behind the German lines for “cover missions”. It’s the same Storch today exhibit in the Italian Air Force Museum. Victor Sierra

Italian Storch

When, 10 June 1940, the Italy went to war, the its Air Force (Regia Aeronautica) were still in full reorganization and full transitional phase to new flight material as decided by the “R” Program (“R” for Rinnovamento=Renewal) or “Three thousand aircraft’s program”. But this latter on the eve of the Italian entry in the war were not still full accomplished. In addition the Regia Aeronautica were far from the complete recovery of the considerable attrition on terms of men and aircrafts caused by two recent conflicts: the war against the Ethiopia and, mainly, the Spanish Civil War, this latter ended on 1939. On the other hand the industry wasn’t able to respect the times and the need required by the Air Force. For example: in the whole 1940 against an Air Force’s requirement for 7,200 new aircraft, the industry built a total of 3,257 aircraft, the 45% of the Air Force’s needs. In substance the Regia Aeronautica, as the other Italian Armed Forces, but mainly the Army (Regio Esercito), wasn’t ready for the war and, mainly, for a war against the Great Britain. Moreover at the outbreak of the WW2, September 1939, the Italy declared to Germany that it’s will ready for the war not before 1942. But the omnipotence’s delirium of Mussolini and its dream to compete with Hitler, together the belief of a brief war and of the Great Britain’s defeat, not crossed by the military leadership and by the complete King’s absence, plus a widespread disdain for the potential enemies, brought to declare war, not urged by the III Reich, to France and the Great Britain. Pictures such as, array of Savoia-Marchetti S.79 bombers on Ciampino Airport, Rome, 28 March 1940, during the celebration of the Regia Aeronautica’s establishment (28 March 1923), given a power’s image soon tragically disappointed. Victor Sierra