ITALIAN AIRCRAFT

Greymouth Evening Star, 22 July 1936, Page 8

ITALIAN AIRCRAFT

BUSY WAR SERVICE

LONDON, June 13

The tremendous part played by the Italian Air Force in the Abyssinian campaign is revealed in statistical detail by a report published in the Rome newspaper "Ottobre.” The figures contained in this report are of great interest, and show the varied uses to which an air arm in a modern war is put. Four hundred aircraft of all types were in service, and these flew a total of 35,000 hours. Casualties amounted to 86 pilots and specialists killed, and 150 wounded. One thousand five hundred tons of explosives were dropped, and 270,000 machine-gun cartridges fired in 178 attacks. The number of bombing attacks was 872, and of reconnaissance attack flights 454. Long-range reconnaissance flights numbered 830. and close-range flights 2149; 300 hours were flown by machines engaged on aerial photography. Great use of the air arm was made for the carrying of supplies to outposts in inaccessible positions for road transport—looo tons were dropped by parachute from aircraft whose average length of flight was 310 miles, and 504 tons of materials such as fuel, stores, and shelters were dropped at the four main advanced points of support. The construction of aerodromes and landing grounds involved the use of 16,000 motors and lorries, and these covered the enormous total of 1,860,000 miles, and carried 75.000 tons of material.

This aerial activity would have been impressive had it. taken place under normal conditions, but it is the more so when it. is realised that the starting points were in the rarefied atmosphere of 131-140 degrees Fahrenheit, and between 0500 and .10,000 feet high.