Silvio Scaroni Tenente Silvio Scaroni ( 12 May 1893 - 16 February 1977 ) was an Italian World War I fighter pilot credited with 26 victories . He was the second ranking Italian ace of the war . Early service . Silvio Scaroni joined the 2nd Field Artillery Regiment of the Italian Army as a corporal . He was serving with that unit when World War I avalanched through the rest of Europe . On 2 August 1914 , Italy announced its neutrality as sides formed up for the conflict . Aerial reconnaissance service . Scaroni transferred to the Corpo Aeronautico Militare in March 1915 . He began training to fly Bleriot s and Caudrons shortly before Italy entered the war on the side of the Triple Entente on 26 April 1915 . In September 1915 , Scaroni was assigned as a reconnaissance pilot with Squadriglia 4a . In January 1917 , he was promoted to first lieutenant and assigned to Squadriglia 43a . Subsequently , he was reassigned to Squadriglia 86a , then to Squadriglia 76a as a fighter pilot . Service as a fighter pilot . On 3 November 1917 , Scaroni filed his first claim for an aerial victory , but it went unconfirmed and uncredited . On 14 November , Scaroni scored his first official victory , while flying a Nieuport 17 . By 19 December , he had scored six victories , and his squadron phased out the Nieuports . For the remainder of his victories , Scaroni would fly a Hanriot HD . 1 . His 25 victories would make him second only to Belgium ' s Willy Coppens for success with this type of airplane . His success with the Hanriot began only four days later , as he scored victory number two on the 18th . A win the following day , and one each on the 5th and 10 December made him an ace in less than a month . He scored once more on 19 December . Then , the day after Christmas , he was the leading gun in one of the most lopsided aerial battles in World War I . As he himself described it in a magazine article he penned for " Nel Cielo " , his airfield was attacked by ten enemy bombers . He shot down one of the bombers in flames at 9 AM . He then dueled with another for twenty minutes before it crashed . The observer leapt from the wreckage and lit it on fire to deny its capture . Unfortunately , the observer managed to catch his own clothing on fire in the process . Still more unfortunately , the pilot was still pinned under the debris and burned to death . Meanwhile , Scaroni ' s squadron - mates shot down six more of the raiders . Scaroni capped off the day by downing another , even larger , bomber at 12 : 35 . He thus ended the year with nine wins . He accumulated another ten victories by 16 June 1918 . On that day , or the next , he doubled his firepower by installing a second machine gun on his plane . He scored four more times in June , including a double on the 25th . July saw him with two confirmed victories and two unconfirmed on the 7th , and a confirmed and an unconfirmed on the 12th . He was wounded the following day , and saw no further combat in the war . Later life . Scaroni attended the Schneider Trophy air races in November , 1926 as part of his duties as Italy ' s Air Attache to the United States . The race was held just outside Washington , D . C . , in the Chesapeake Bay . Italy had a racing team entered ; they had come with such expectation of victory that they had smuggled celebratory Chianti in their seaplane floats in violation of America ' s Prohibition . When they had engine problems , Scaroni suggested switching American spark plugs and gasoline into the Italian planes . That solved their engine woes . Italy sent a military mission to aid the Nationalist Chinese government in 1933 . Circa 1934 , as part of this mission to China , Colonel Scaroni established a flying school for the Chinese Air Force at Loyang . Its policy was to graduate every pupil . This was done to ingratiate the Italians to the ruling class parents of the flying cadets , and to undercut the popularity of a previously established flying school at Hangchow , which was staffed and run by Americans to stricter United States Army Air Corps standards . The mission would remain in China until 1936 . Scaroni would serve there through 1937 . The Italian mission also set up an aircraft manufactory to produce Fiat fighters and Savoia - Marchetti bombers under license . During World War II , Scaroni commanded the Italian air forces in Sicily . Writings by Scaroni . Scaroni published his memoirs as " Impressions and Memories of Aerial Warfare " , as noted below .