Three Caproni Ca.310 of the 11th Escuadron de Bombarderos (Bombers Squadron) of the Peruvian Air Corps flying over the Rio Guayas during the Peruvian-Ecuadorian War (the Zarumilla War) on 1941. The missions of the Peruvian Ca.310, sixteen planes purchased in Italy and delivered on 1938, included raid against the Ecuadorian town of Santa Rosa, Machala and Pasaje, the most important rearguard’s basis of the Ecuador’s Army. Inside a world shattered by the WW2, the conflict between the two Latin American countries (the first of a series of three wars) passed almost unnoticed and even now is almost forgotten. Victor Sierra 

A forgotten war 

Peruvian paratroopers boarding on the “Panchos”, the Caproni Ca.111 purchased in Italy, twelve aircraft, in the 1930s. The Peruvian Armed Forces had a small unit of paratroopers trained by the Italians. During the Zarumilla War of 1941 (Peruvian-Ecuador war), on 27 July, the Cuerpo Aeronáutico del Perú (Peruvian Air Corps) dropped a small number of paratroopers from his Ca.111 “Panchos” to seize the river port of Port Bolivar in the disputed territory. This operation was the first combat use of paratroopers in the Americas (as in Latin America much as in North America). Victor Sierra

First paratroopers combat mission in the Americas

One of the recce and observation airplanes IMAM Ro.37bis delivered by the Italy to Nationalist Spain during the Spanish Civil War. The first ten of the 67 Ro.37bis deployed in Spain arrived on 29 September 1937 at Vigo harbor and assembled at Seville. At the end of the Civil War the Spanish Air Force had 37 Ro.37bis in combat order assigned to Escuela de Caza (Fighter School) at Jerez and employed until August 1943. Victor Sierra