Royal Italian Air Service / Servizio Aeronautico
The Italian Royal Army (Regio Esercito) was authorised in 1884 to acquire observation balloons, to be operated by the Air Service (Servizio Aeronautico) with the 3° Engineer Regiment based near Rome.
In 1909, Wilbur Wright was invited to Rome and through this visit gave practical aviation in Italy its start. Shortly after his arrival from France on April 1, he began the training of Lieutenants Savoia (Army) and Mario Calderara (Navy), the latter gaining the distinction of being the first Italian to make a solo flight. Wilbur's performance caused great excitement and he was everywhere received with acclaim. King Victor Emmanuel honored him by an unexpected visit to the field to watch the flights and appeared with a folding camera slung over his shoulder like any other tourist.
Later in 1909, Glenn Curtiss visited Italy to attend the Brescia aviation meet in September, where he won the Grand Prize. On September 11, while participating in the passenger-carrying contest, Curtiss achieved a remarkable success in taking up another person in his rather small machine—the passenger being the poet-soldier-author, Gabriele d'Annunzio. This was accomplished by wiring a board to the top of the lower wing and having the pilot and passenger cling precariously to the struts and wires.
From a purely military point of view, the outstanding feature of the Italian operations in Tripoli in 1911 was the successful utilization of aeroplanes for both defensive and offensive purposes. Highly-effective work was carried out by the officers of the Italian air corps. At first the Italian aeroplanes were employed, not in scouting, but in petrifying the natives of the city. The machines confined themselves entirely to the air directly above Tripoli and its suburbs.
The series of reconnaissances undertaken by Captain Piazza on his Blériot monoplane to and from the town and the outskirts of the desert, the dropping of bombs by the military airmen over the Turkish camp at Ain-Zara, and, lastly, the signal assistance rendered by the flying machines in the desperate battle of October 23rd, afford, indeed, incontestable evidence of the value of the “fourth arm” in actual warfare. The success that attended these important operations was beyond anything anticipated. Leblanc, the “lightning flyer," says the Italians have established the fact that aeroplanes afford ideal means of reconnoitering in war time, and Blériot, following in the same strain, says he did not think two years earlier, when he crossed the Channel, that flying machines would so soon be used on or over battlefields.
The Army Air Service dispatched from the Pordenone military school, near Milan, to Tripoli, consisted of only half a dozen aeroplanists, namely, Captain Piazza, Captain Moizzo, and Lieutenants Gavotti, Rossi, Roberti and dc Rada. The corps reached the seat of war on October 19th, and on the 22nd, Captain Piazza, on his Blériot, made his first flight over the town and the country round, covering a distance of about eighty miles. In a subsequent reconnoissance the same officer detected the presence of the Turkish and Arab forces some fifteen miles from the Italian headquarters. Previous reports had given the eneniy’s position as sixty miles away.
“The battle which was fought at Tripoli on October 24th," writes the correspondent of the Central News, “will remain celebrated in military annals as the first engagement to be directed entirely from aeroplanes." (The date here is wrongly given. The battle referred to must be that of October 23rd, when the Italians had to withstand the joint attack of the insurgents in the town and that of the Turks and Arabs from outside.) “Three machines were employed,” continues the correspondent. “One, operated by Captain Piazza, watched the centre; the second. that of Captain Moizzo, hovered over the left; and the third, that of Lieutenant Rossi, was on the right. Each aviator was accompanied by an officer of the general stafi, who followed closely the various phases of the combat in his own particular zone.
These observers were able to write notes of the progress of the battle, which they threw down to those below when the aeroplanes returned at intervals in the direction of the commanderin-chief’s position. The commander-in-chief had thus merely to regulate the movements of the troops in accordance with the indications furnished by his aerial general staff.
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