In February 1918, he took part in a daring, if militarily irrelevant, raid on the harbour of Bakar (known in Italy as "La beffa di Buccari", lit. "the Bakar Mockery"), helping to raise the spirits of the Italian public, still battered by the Caporetto disaster. On 9 August 1918, as commander of the 87th fighter squadron "La Serenissima", he organized one of the great feats of the war, leading nine planes in a 700-mile round trip to drop propaganda leaflets on Vienna. This is called in Italian "il Volo su Vienna", "the Flight over Vienna".