• Military Menu                       

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Industry
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• WMD
• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

Military Aeronautical Corps / Corpo Aeronautico Militare

Despite the invaluable experience gained during the campaign by Libya and the subsequent attempts to give a more organic and functional definition for the new weapon, the outbreak of the Great War in August 1914 found the Italian air forces completely unprepared, with scarce resources and infrastructure and without an adequate support from industry, whose total production capacity was limited to very few machines per year. Even the months that elapsed between the start of hostilities and Italian intervention were not enough to fundamentally alter this situation.

An exception was the organizational profile, which at least configured with clarity an aeronautical organization increasingly detached from the gun of genius. The Royal Decree of January 7, 1915, then converted into law in 1917, established the Corpo Aeronautico Militare [Military Aeronautical Corps) – dependent on the Ministry of War and divided basically into two commands, four battalions, one aircraft Plant, a military aviation technical direction and a central Aeronautical Institute – which, together with the submarine and aviation Inspectorate which were officially released in 1916 as part of the Marina, represented the context of the entire national air force.

In April 1915, the Italians signed a treaty with the French and British, agreeing to enter the war in May. Italy had for centuries been oppressed by Austria, and the Italians had come to hate and distrust her to an extraordinary degree. Was she not the firm ally of the new Germany, committed to all Germany's schemes, and her accomplice in the very worst of her plots? There had been a treaty called the Triple Alliance between Italy, Austria, and Germany, which had provided for mutual assistance between the three under certain circumstances. The Italians had always declared from the very beginning that the Triple Alliance should never cover a war begun by the Austrians and Germans. Austria still controlled a considerable section of territory in which the bulk of the people were Italians — Italy Unredeemed, Italia Irredenta. These Italians were most anxious to join United Italy and their compatriots were eager to free them from Austrian domination.

Italian aviation, absolutely insignificant at the beginning of the war, was able in a short time to bring itself up to a very high degree of efficiency, profiting from the first by the experience of the Allied nations which had already been fighting for a year, and continually developing its own designs and models, bringing them to their present state of perfection which, in certain respects, places them at the head of existing aviation. Italian industry, notwithstanding the serious scarcity of all the essential raw materials, through general enterprise and an admirable tenacity, developed itself prodigiously in spite of the enormous difficulties in the way.

Battleplanes are of the greatest importance at the Italian front. Numerous important and beautiful cities are but a few miles back of the battle line, which greatly facilitate the work of enemy flyers, but Italian pursuers give no truce, and with continued assiduity and indomitable courage render it almost impossible for enemy machines to cross the firing line during the day.

Italian aviation has few types of machines and each was used for a particular line of activity.

• For day and night bombing the Caproni Ca. 5 with three Fiat motors, each 300 h.p. The carrying capacity of this machine is 1,700 pounds of bombs for a distance of about 300 miles from its base. The numerous war raids carried out by these powerful machines are now known the world over and their crushing weight has been felt by the enemv.
• For day bombing a new and very powerful machine is being used, the SIA 9/B equipped with a Fiat 700-h.p. A/14 motor. This fast machine (130 miles an hour), powerfully armed, can carry two persons, fuel for three hours of flight and 770 pounds of explosives: it marks great progress in the construction of day bombing planes.
• For reconnaisance there are two types of planes, the Pomilio F and the SIA 7/B, both equipped with a Fiat A/12 300h.p. motor, having a speed of about 120 miles, climbing rapidly, carrying a pilot and observer, powerfully armed and equipped with photographing and radio apparatus.
• The SVA, the same machine as raided Vienna, is used for the fastest and long distance reconnoitering expeditions and is also able to carry a small amount of explosives.
• Two very modern machines are used by Italian aviation for this particular purpose, the Pomilio Gamma with a Isotta Fraschini 270-h.p. motor, and the Ansaldo A-l with a SPA 270-h.p. motor. Both these machines have a speed of about 140 miles an hour, climb very rapidly, carry two machine guns synchronizing with the motor, and represent the greatest progress made in machines of this type.

Early in August 1916 the Italians began a series of raids with giant Caproni airplanes against the Austrian naval base at Pola. These were meant to be both reprisals for Austrian raids and military assaults upon the nest of aircraft and warships with which Austria sealed the entry to the Gulf of Trieste. Each Caproni airplane carried a crew of four or five men, with an extraordinary cargo of bombs. An eyewitness thus describes the departure: The first raid was carried out by thirtysix machines, including fast fighting machines, which escorted the great Caproni bomb-droppers. It was like watching a flotilla of destroyers go to sea as the great machines moved off at four-minute intervals, taking up a perfect alignment against the sky. Motor boats were out to guide them to the Austrian coast, for there was a fog over the sea. Before midnight the squadron was over Pola, manoeuvring amid a tangle of searchlight beams and a hurricane of shots from panic-stricken gunners in the city's defenses. Bombs ranging from 70 to 200 pounds were raining down on the. arsenal, dockyard, and anchored ships.

Three waves of airplanes went over, and the first two saw a huge explosion in the arsenal and a greet fire start up, either in the arsenal or in the submarine depot. Six and a half tons of bombs were dropped in all, and there would have been more but that the third wave of attackers failed to find purely military targets. The following night they again returned to the attack. This time a light fog favored the aviators, and eight tons of explosives were deposited where they were likely to do the most damage. The results were described as entirely satisfactory.

In 1917 the Italians raided Austrian towns and bases on the Adriatic coast with the deadly regularity of a mail service. For hours at a time Italian aeroplanes flew over at fourminute intervals, until the Austrians stopped their attacks by air against the Italian towns. So thoroughly were the raids conducted that the defences were completely disorganised and the Italian losses were infinitesimal.

Giant Caproni aeroplanes rained bombs 08 October 1917 upon the Austrian naval base at Cattaro, starting fires among the buildings in the navy yard and causing damage to Austrian ships in the harbor. The Austrians met the attack with the greatest vigor, but were unahle to drive off the aeroplanes until nearly daylight, when the Italians withdrew, without loss, to their own base. Advices from Rome indicate that the Italian attack was intended to forestall an Austrian naval demonstration being organized at Cattaro and Pola. The squadron started from its base. 230 kilometers across the Adriatic Sea. Gahriele d'Annunzio, the Italian poet, who has attained distinction as one of the most daring aviators in the war, was- in command of one of the aeroplanes.

The squadron arrived at midnight over Cattaro flying at 12.000 feet. The aeroplanes descended until thev were only a few hundred feet over the harbor and began to drop bombs on the Austrian destroyers and submarines in the bay, many of which were seen to be hit, as fires were observed to break out immediately. Meanwhile other Italian aeroplanes were bombing the naval depots and storehouses ashore and several fires were observed. Several of the Italian aeroplanes were riddled in their wings with shrapnel and machine Rim bullets, but were not seriously damaged.

On August 9, 1918, the celebrated poet Major Gabriele d'Annunzio led seven Sva aircraft of his Serenissima squadron in The Great Vienna Raid. This was a pioneer psychological warfare mission, in which the Viennese were warned that they were fighting a losing battle. The Italians bombed the city with thousands and thousands of manifestos glorifying the Italian Tricolor as symbol of Liberty, pointing out the state of servitude in which the German Government held the populations of Austria, and extolling the marvelous enterprise of the valiant American troops on the French front. They remained over the city for half an hour, descending to less than 2,500 feet, while the aeroplane carrying the commander, Major d'Annunzio, dropped to 1,900 feet. The flight lasted somewhat more than six hours. This undertaking, long a dream of Italian airmen, is at last an accomplished fact. Ever since the beginning of the war, secret preparations had several times been made for a raid on the Austrian capital, but the Army High Command was always opposed, for unknown reasons.

Estimates of the aircraft strength on the front were always uncertain, due to variation in the estimates of the number of planes in a squadron, but one estimate of the Allied strength on November 11, 1918, ws as follows: France 3,000; Great Britain - 2,100; United States - 740; Italy - 600.