WW2 - Page 3

Towards the onset of World War 2, few would have predicted the magnitude of the battles to come. However, many would agree that the Italian Royal Air Force (or the Regia Aeronautica Italiana) and their bomber planes was poised to play a significant, if not pivotal, role in the war to come. From 1923, the

The Second World War is remembered through the airplanes that survive from it. There were land-based campaigns and naval battles, but the war was fought and won in the air. Aviation was advanced enough that it became the defining aspect of the generation – fleets of thousands of bombers and fighters zooming across the skies

In 1939, Italy had almost as many fighters as Britain and France combined. However, nearly half of them were obsolescent bi-plane types, with fixed undercarriages such as the Fiat CR.32 and CR.42 Falcon, which has fought on the nationalist side during the Spanish civil war. Italian industry had been slow to respond to changing demands,