Evening star., 1941-04-08

any others in that war. though their
bombers were decidedly inferior, My
admiration for the personal quail
tiles of these fighting pilots has been
justified by their engagements with
the British. In almost every in
stance that the Italians and British
have clashed the British plane has
had more speed and better guns
than the Italian. And yet the Ital-
ian fighting pilot has never hesi-
tated to engage his enemy.
Something OF the penalty Fascist
politics and corruption have i'm
posed on them, especially in the last
two months OF fighting, was ex-
planned to me by young Italian
pilot who is the heir to a great title
and a graduate of one OF the English
universities. These English chaps
are wonderful" he said, and their
planes beyond compare. The first
time Hurricane hit my squadron
he shot down four fighters before
we knew he was on us. 1t was lit
orally like a hurricane coming
through US"
Bad Training System.
The second reason for italian Air
Corps inadequacy is a bad system
of training Against $50 hours of
basic training of American cadets
the italian has only 100 hours in
the air. Italian emphasis-and this
is true of the German, too-is for
group work rather than individual
enterprise and both members of the
axis treasure plane rather than a
pilot.
When an American pilot cracks up
a plane his commanding officer
merely says, Bad luck" When an
Italian or German smashes that
many thousand dollars worth of
equipment there is hell to pay.
Fortunately, American pilots are
encouraged to take their planes out
alone on cross-country f1ights-re-
quired to, in fact-but this Is un-
heard of in Italy or Germany.
The result? Listen to an Italian
pilot l have known for 10 years.
When we are bombing Malta" he
said, I'm sunk when there are Brit
ish fighters. Only our squadron
leader knows anything about navi-
CATION. If I lose him in the general
breakup I might as we'll be shot
down, because none of us in the
other planes knows how to find his
way home. We have got visions of
giving out of gas somewhere in the
Mediterranean. Do you think the
bomber goes on with his bombing
mission or the fighter concentrates
on British fighters? He'll, no. We
are all thinking with three-quar-
ters of our minds about where the
squadron is and how we get home"
Bombed Own Ships.
This weakness and also the argu-
ment about a separate air force were
best brought home in the battle of
the heel of the peninsula when
British ships drove the italian fleet
into Taranto early in the war in
order to screen the passage of a
convoy to Malta. The Italian Navy
called for the bombers. They came,
but at great altitude. and for one
hour they bombed their own ships.
Fortunately, they missed. Thereafter
1t was necessary to put naval officers
who know the lines of their own
ships in bombing squadrons.
These training errors should have
been revised, but the Italians had
great success In Spain and they re-
organized their air work on the basis
of the Spanish experience. Unhap-
PLY for Italy. Spain was not a very
good testing ground for modern air
warfare. Consequently, the defects.
Their bombers have no proper bomb
sight and they have not overcome
this handicap by a combination of
area and dive-bombing. They Just
fly over and drop in the haphazard
Spanish fashion. Similarly, recon-
naissance which depends on the
perfection of the individual pilot is
never reconnaissance as undertaken
by the Italians. They merely sweep
up or down the coast in squadron
formation. In short, they have
overlooked the lesson which the
British have proved perfectly-in
the air quality counts, quality of
machines and quality of pilots.
Finally, country like Italy, which
depends on overseas countries for
raw materials, cannot keep the pace
in the air. Modern warfare is
fought by machines and by great in
dustrial countries with an .abun-
dance of raw materials and petro-
leum. Mussolini didn't seem to
know that, and since Mussolini must
always be right, no one seems to
have had the temerity to tell him.
But the awakening that the poor
cocky pilot gos was rude, indeed.
They don't believe any longer that
the British are decadent and they
think somebody has been lying to
them.
copyright, 1941, Chicago Daily News, 1ne.)