Flavio Baracchini Lieutenant Flavio Torello Baracchini was an Italian World War I fighter ace credited with 21 confirmed and nine unconfirmed aerial victories . His confirmed victory total ranked him fourth among Italian aces of the war . After the war he worked as an inventor , working in the areas of aviation communications and explosives . He died in 1928 as a result of injuries that he received during an accident in his laboratory . Military career . Flavio Baracchini was born at Villafranca in Lunigiana on 28 July 1895 . He was educated at technical schools in La Spezia . As World War I heated up , he was assigned to the Italian Army ' s 3rd Engineer Battalion . However , in Autumn 1915 , he reported to the SIT School in Torino for pilot ' s training . He was awarded licenses on 15 October and 1 December 1915 ; he then qualified on Voisin s on 27 January 1916 . On 28 February 1916 , he was posted to " 7a Squadriglia " ( later redesignated " 26a Squadriglia " ) and piloted a Voisin for them until 20 November 1916 . In December 1916 , he was commissioned as a " Sottotenente " . He also reported to Cascina Costa to train on Nieuport fighters . However , Baracchini had no success as a fighter pilot until May 1917 , when he was assigned to the newly formed " 81a Squadriglia " . His claim of the 15th went unconfirmed , but he got his first victory five days later , when he shot down an Albatros south of Marco . He scored again on the 23rd and 25th . He scored once more , on 6 June 1917 , while flying a Nieuport 11 , before upgrading to a Nieuport 17 . He used his new plane to tally four more triumphs that month . By the 22nd , he had scored eight victories by fighting 35 times in 39 days . For this extraordinary display of prowess , Flavio Baracchini became the first Italian fighter pilot to win the Gold Medal for Military Valor . He transferred to " 76a Squadriglia " and a Hanriot HD . 1 on 14 July 1917 . He also evaluated a loaner Spad VII for possible use by the squadron ; it was rejected . Baracchini won twice in July . In August , he was credited with two more victories , on the 3rd and 8th , while his first claim for an observation balloon went unconfirmed . He was so seriously wounded in the left jaw on 8 August 1917 that he was out of action for nine months . Upon his return , he again had an unconfirmed credit on a balloon , on 3 April 1918 . Then he was transferred back to " 81a Squadriglia " . He had four confirmed and four unconfirmed wins for May . He began his final month of combat with a double victory on 15 June , with a third claim going unconfirmed . On the 18th , he once again was denied credit for downing a balloon . On the 21st , he finally became a balloon buster , for his nineteenth credit . He scored again on both the 22nd and the 25th , to bring his total to 21 confirmed and nine unconfirmed . However , on the 25th , he was again severely wounded , this time when he was shot down by machine gun fire . Post war life . He survived the war , and quit flying in 1921 . He turned to inventing items that would be useful to fliers . His first invention was a signalling device for communicating with airplanes , which was adopted by Italian aviators . He then began development of an explosive mixture in a laboratory . It ignited accidentally and burned him severely on 29 July 1928 . He lingered a short while , before succumbing on 18 August 1928 .