AEROPLANE TO AEROPLANO

      "Resistance is futile," the villain would say on a popular TV show. In this case, it was suicide.      During the last days of the summer of 1943, the Italian Royal Air Force, which was the aggressor in the Mediterranean just three years before, is now facing overwhelming enemy forces. The Allies have conquered North Africa, they landed in Sicily on the 10th of July and now they dominate the sky over the Italian mainland.             What follows is the translation of a few pages of the diary of an Italian pilot who lived through those tragic days before the Armistice of September 8. He's flying a Macchi C 200: a fighter designed by Dr. Castoldi , the designer of the racing record setting seaplanes of the Schneider Cup. However, the C 200 is not fast. It flew for the first time in 1937, and even then it was barely adequate. Now, in 1943, it could be considered only a light fighter.  Although it could...

By Gianandrea Gaiani  (The article appeared originally on the Italian daily newspaper La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana , and was translated by L. Pavese)           Al-Qaeda has finally publicly claimed paternity of the strongest and most active militant group among the Syrian rebel movements, and in so doing has put the entire coalition that is fighting against the Bashar Assad’s regime in an embarrassing position. The most open secret about the ideological similarity between the Islamist terrorist network and some of the Salafi militants who are fighting in Syria was revealed by the leader of al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia himself, Abu-Bakr al-Baghdadi. In a communiqué that was broadcast on the web, al-Baghdadi declared that the al-Nusra Front is nothing but the Syrian wing of al-Qaeda in Iraq, and its objective is the creation of an Islamic state in Syria.  Al-Baghdadi, according to whom the two movements have by now been fe...

Questo pezzo è apparso sulla rivista Americana "Flying" negli anni 1950. Mi è sembrato interessante perché tratta di operazioni aeree poche conosciute, credo; in un teatro, quale quello Medio-Orientale, che è sempre di attualità, anche a sessant'anni di distanza. L'autore fa riferimento a un certo Jerry: un agente israeliano che operava in Italia durante il primo conflitto arabo-israeliano. Sarebbe interessante sapere chi fosse. Buona lettura. I vostri commenti saranno molto graditi, e se vi interessa leggere un altro pezzo che riguarda il C-46 date un'occhiata  a: "Da lì all'eternità" . Grazie.  Un Curtiss C-46, come quello di cui si tratta nel racconto. VOLARE PER ISRAELE Traduzione e rielaborazione di Leonardo Pavese (Dal racconto di Robert J. Luttrell) Ascendemmo ripidamente dal campo d’aviazione di Aquir, vicino a Tel Aviv; col nostro C-46 che seguiva la fascia costiera grigioverde della Palestina. Oltre l’ala dest...