Description
A small part of the Italian Royal Air Force (Regia Aeronautica) remained under German control. This was known as the National Republican Air Force (Aeronautica Nazionale Repubblicana, or ANR), ostensibly part of the forces of the Benito Mussolini's Fascist state in northern Italy, the Italian Social Republic (Repubblica Sociale Italiana). The ANR pilots flew with the Axis.
By the end of 1943, 281 Italian warplanes had landed at Allied airfields, but most were no longer useful for combat. The crews of these aircraft were re-equipped with Allied aircraft and engaged in transport, escort, reconnaissance, sea rescue, and limited tactical ground support operations flying 11,000 missions from 1943 to 1945.
The ACI never operated over Italian territory, its objectives being always in the Balkans (Yugoslavia or Albania). This was to avoid any possible encounter between Italian-manned aircraft fighting on opposite sides. During the entire history of ICA, no encounter, let alone combat, was ever reported between ACI and ANR aircraft.
The ACI formed the basis of the post-war Air Force of the Italian Republic (Aeronautica Militare Italiana).
Read more about this topic: Italian Co-Belligerent Air Force
Famous quotes containing the word description:
“The Sage of Toronto ... spent several decades marveling at the numerous freedoms created by a “global village” instantly and effortlessly accessible to all. Villages, unlike towns, have always been ruled by conformism, isolation, petty surveillance, boredom and repetitive malicious gossip about the same families. Which is a precise enough description of the global spectacle’s present vulgarity.”
—Guy Debord (b. 1931)
“As they are not seen on their way down the streams, it is thought by fishermen that they never return, but waste away and die, clinging to rocks and stumps of trees for an indefinite period; a tragic feature in the scenery of the river bottoms worthy to be remembered with Shakespeare’s description of the sea-floor.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Do not require a description of the countries towards which you sail. The description does not describe them to you, and to- morrow you arrive there, and know them by inhabiting them.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)