Summer 1942: an Italian fighter returned at the base in Sicily with the shot’s sign received after a dogfight with RAF’s fighters likely over Malta. The plane is one of the Reggiane Re 2001 Falco II (Hawk II) of the 152nd Squadriglia with well visible the emblem (the submachine gun armed duck) of this unit of the 2nd Gruppo Caccia. The late was the first Regia Aeronautica’s unit equipped with the Re.2001. Based in Sicily, Caltagirone airfield from 4 May 1942 and from half August of the same 1942 at Trapani, Chinisia airfield, the 2nd Gruppo was immediately tasked for bomber escort missions over Malta and the Western Mediterranean. In the operations against Malta the Reggiane little fighter revealed itself an airplane able to absorb serious damages taking back his pilot. But the cost to 2nd Gruppo the loss of two of its leader: Aldo Quarantotti, missed in action on 12 July 1942 during the search in bad weather of a Gruppo’s pilot not returned, and Pierluigi Scarpetta, successor of the same Quarantotti, shot down together two other 2nd Gruppo’s pilot on 13 August 1942 by RAF’s fighters about 20 Km NE Linosa island. Victor Sierra

Signs of the battle

A Regia Aeronautica’s Officer, a Capitano (Captain), standing in front a fighter unit’s Macchi MC.202 tropicalized (anti-sand filter and North African finish), likely in North Africa 1942. The officer, together a no standard foulard, wear upon the uniform’s coat the flight jacket Marus Model 1940, the classic and ubiquitous item of clothing of the Italian Air Force’s air crew during all the WW2, and after the Armistice both by the Regia Aeronautica co-Belligerent and by Repubblica Sociale Italiana’s Air Force (ANR-Aeronautica Nazionale Repubblicana). The Marus, from the name of the producer, was a single-breasted all-wool waterproof flight jacket with central zip, two pocket with cuff and jacket-base stretch-wool. The Officer of this photo wear the Marus with the detachable lining fastened to collar in lamb hair shaved beaver type, another “classic” of Italian aviators clothing of this time. The Marus was in service also after the war, until the first half of the Fifties when the jet era required different flight suites. Some surplus Marus was purchased by many flying club pilots and used for another dozen years (And I remember my father with a splendid Marus in impeccable conditions). Victor Sierra

Marus

Fight souvenir: bullet’s sign over a sliding window of the canopy of an Italian Air Force’s Reggiane Re.2001 fighter aircraft. Sicily, 1942. Victor Sierra