A few years ago someone posted this 2 part interview with one of Italy's top aces, Luigi Gorrini, on another forum. I thought you might appreciate it. This is part one
Here is the interview with Luigi Gorrini, the highest scoring Italian ace who survived the war, along with Franco Bordoni Bisleri: each had 19 victories.
Part I
Q. Where were you on June 10th, 1940? (i.e., the day when Mussolini declared war to France and Great Britain)
A. On June 10th, 1940, there was the feeling that something was going on. I was based at the airport of Mondovì with the 18th Group of the 3rd Fighter Wing that was at Mirafiori (near Turin), where we get back to arm the airplanes. From there, my Squadron flew to Novi Ligure, then to Albenga (both in Liguria) in order to be set against French. That was one of the best airports since its stripe was made by concrete, while the other airports were just grass. I was in Albenga when Mussolini made that famous speech and just after it there was an air alarm over Genova.
Q. Which kind aircraft had you?
A. We had the FIAT CR.42, at that time an already obsolete machine, super-obsolete. A fabric covered biplane, without armor, without radio, with malfunctioning oxygen plants. It was a very good airplane in terms of maneuverability, armed with two effective 12.7 mm machine guns, but if you just think to the eight 7.7 millimeters of the Spits and Hurricanes...
There were some combats: we went to strafe their airports, near Toulon. The first strafing went wrong: it was weird, since we managed to reach the objective, find all their aircraft, strafe them, but nobody could confirm that we could set any fire on. We thought our bullets were defective and, once back, we did a test: with an airplane we shot a gasoline can, which immediately took fore. Then the reckon certified that we had just shot some fake aircrafts, they had us. But the day after we had them: we pounced another airport at 12 pm o'clock, two Squadrons up to cover us while strafing. There was a tough combat, luckily only three or four of their Dewoitine 520 could take off: they shot down two of us, two wingmen of the group commander, Major Mossilla, already a commander of the strafing squadrons during Spain's War [those bearing the symbol with three white arrows on a black "fascio" and the writing "Ocio che te copo" ("Watch out, I'm killing you" in Venetian dialect)].
Q. What was the general feeling, how was morale when entering the war?
A. Morale was very high. We also believed our planes were good, but when we saw what our enemy had, I mean those French Dewoitine and Morane, we had to change our mind. Later on I could better know those machines, when I went to France to get some of their airplanes that remained to the Vichy Government (we ran short of ours and we needed everything). It was like comparing a tricycle to a Ferrari...
Q. In which condition was the Regia Aeronautica (the Italian Royal Air Force)?
A. At the beginning of the war we had two kinds of airplanes: the CR.42 by FIAT, a biplane, and the Macchi MC.200, a boring nose-plane (?? I believe it's a dialectal expression, maybe means tricky to fly?), on the first models if you tightened (your turn) too much you started a spin; but it was a good monoplane that could adapt very well. However, we knew and we were told that the 200 and the 202, also by Macchi, were available. FIAT had a big order for CR42 production... I believe they keep producing it until the end of the war... Macchi could do better.
Q. And the FIAT G.50?
A. The FIAT G.50 was a monoplane, very tricky (?)... it made many victims and when it came out it was already obsolete. A strange machine, you had to be very careful on landing and take-off. However, we believed we were going to win the war... instead, later on... Look, the only competitive aircraft we had was the Macchi MC.202 and in particular the 205: with this one we could stand Spitfires, Hurricanes and even the Americans with their Mustang, during the time of the Repubblica Sociale. Of course the Mustang was superior, since already at 10,000 meters the controls on the 205 became insensitive. Maybe the best one of ours was the FIAT G.55, with this one you could also climb to 10,000 meters, but they produced really little numbers of that one.
Q. Let's go back to the first impact with French aircraft. What did you feel?
A. I have to say that France was really disbanded... but I was a rookie, I joined the air force in 1937 and I arrived at my group on the first months of 1939. I was the last arrived of my squadron, thus green in war matters. However, there were with me some pilots who did the Spanish war, and that was pretty lucky since the squadron commander assigned me to two of these veterans; each squadron had its own acrobatic group. And that was the reason why Sen. Sgt. Tullio Bortolotti was assigned to me as acrobatic instructor and Sen. Sgt. Rozzi, today a General, as war instructor. We simulated flight pursuits. I own to him, a Spain veteran and a member of the famous Cucaracha squadron, a lot of precious teaching.
Q. But what did you think of the enemy you had in front of you?
A. During the first combats in France... I just could not fire. To me, that guy who was in front of me did nothing bad; all along the war I always tried not to shoot to the cockpit where the pilot was, but I rather tried to shot the airplane, the machine. Of course I had to wake up, since nobody was playing there: have a look at those pictures... a cannon shot on the 205 almost got me in the head, luckily that there was a defensive armor, it was a 20 mm cannon... Well, in France, the first time I had the aircraft in front of me I couldn't make myself open fire. At a certain point the commander, Major Ussilla, get beside me and did what I was supposed to do. Then, once we landed, he shouted at me: "What the **** you were waiting for? If you have to make war that way, you'd better stay on ground!" However, to shot another person...
But I can say I witnessed some terrible episodes by our enemies: strafing on our shot down pilots while they were descending by parachute. In these cases I went down, I followed the enemies while they were descending, I even dropped them my water bottle... they were men like myself. However, for me everything was new, while the veterans from the Spanish war were much smarter.
Q. War goes on and becomes harsh. What happened after France campaign?
A. When we finished in France we went back to Mirafiori; there were strange news coming from Africa. Because, you see, if we were on ground on national territory, there in Africa they were litteraly underground: they had some CR.42, still those of the Spanish war, some AB1, some Breda 64 and 65, they were doing some strafing... to support the situation in Africa, a group of 50 airplanes of our wing was sent to Libya. The transfer was uneventful and we could immediately go back to Italy where we were delivered some new FIAT CR.42: brand new, but still identical to the old ones, that is without armor. We, the pilots, we had to arrange some little devices: one of them was to fill the luggage compartment that was behind our head, that one for our personal belongings, with a sandbag that could stop the bullets. Warrant Off. Sozzi saved my life in the sky over England. I had that Spit behind and I didn't see it and he throw himself between me and the Spit... and he took all the shots.
A bullet perforated his lungs, but he managed to cross, wounded, the English Channel and to land at Calais... the Germans recovered him immediately. Sozzi was proposed for the gold medal by General Fusi, the head of the expedition. I saw him some time later and asked him about that. "And so?" ... "Eh, I got the medal, but a silver one. You know, my ranks are here" (showing his shoulder where non-commissioned officers had their ranks). There was a bias for attributing medals to non-commissioned officers: they needed at least two witnesses during the flight. Conversely, officers came back, told their story... and were believed on their honor. But for myself, even if I was a non-commissioned officer, everything id OK: reports, proofs, prisoners. I have shot down 24 aircrafts by myself! No counting those which I have contributed to shot down with other people or those destroyed on ground... An officer could go back to his base, affirm that he shot down an airplane and that was a silver medal. I shot down 19 airplanes before September 8th, I had the right to get 3 silver medals that were transformed in a golden one.
Q. Did you also participate to the Battle of Britain?
A. As I was telling you, after coming back from our transfer in Africa, we got our new CR.42: no armor, malfunctioning oxygen plants, navy life jackets that were too big and impaired our movements. We departed from Turin and landed in Munich were we refueled. I remember it was snowing. From there we went to Frankfurt and then to Belgium, at Ursell, something incredible and absurd, we couldn't see the airport, even the commander was astonished.
At a certain moment we saw some pine trees moving, and some cows. It was all so well concealed that the English never managed to find that airport. There was even a big farm made of cardboard with doors and windows, inflatable rubber cows and movable pine trees that were used to hide the aircraft shelters that were also covered by nets. We were under equipped, just think that we had no heating on our aircraft, which by the way were open. We flew even when there were -30°C on ground! If we had to take-off at 11am, those poor mechanics had to hang to the propellers that couldn't make them turn, the oil being hard. Food was bad at the beginning, but then the logistic of our group arrived and things changed.
Mud everywhere. The operations were decided by the Germans, we had to escort our bombers: it was a disaster. A lot of pilots came there, some of them were just rich spoilt kids seeking for war emotions... there was such a phenomenon in Spain already. But that was not a money war, that was a lead war and English guys were not joking, they shoot for real.
We escorted bombers, but to keep them together was almost impossible: some went down because engines wouldn't work. They were BR.20, fabric covered machines too, conceived to fly light and take off from dry ground. Instead, here they were overloaded of bombs and landing stripes were muddy, and pilots lacked training. The first two mission were a disaster: Germans stopped us when they realized which kind of aircraft we had... oxygen stuck, no radio, fabric airplanes, and as the first thing they gave us some catalytic heaters to heat the engines and then, in just 48 hours, they installed additional armor. They gave us their flying suits, gloves and helmets (we still had the light ones). Honestly, all we had was just our eyes to cry with, we made war in these conditions; we even had no maps, even in Italy we carried on using the Touring Club road maps. Can you imagine with such fog? After a fight, we came back in 25, landing in 4 different nations, we couldn't see a thing but some bell towers.
I landed when I saw a landing stripe, except that it wasn't that, it was a motorway, and before me already 4 guys did the same mistake: one landed in a square in Amsterdam, Saddini and others among the trees. Two were shot down, or at least they said so, but afterwards we ascertained that they just had technical failures. The poor Salvadori, and Lazzari. One had the inward oil temperature at 120 (°C) and was scared to come back by crossing the Channel, thus he tried to land on British ground but the aircraft hit a hole and set itself vertical (there's its picture in English archives) and he was taken as a prisoner.
The other one got his compass mad. One of these aircrafts, the one of Salvadori, is in the Imperial War Museum. Giuntella, Rozzin, Lolli, Guglielmetti. Grillo, Mazza, we lost all of them, plus some others, but not Lazzari and Salvadori. In the middle of the winter we were ordered to go back, and meanwhile the FIAT G.50 arrived, but did not take part to any action there, since their range was not long enough and as soon they crossed the Channel they had to go back. Thus they were deployed for airport night defense, in single night flights. Look, the English expedition was something we should forget: wrong bombardments, useless machines. However, the combat of November 11th was a great one! Consider that years later I had the opportunity to meet those who participated on the opposite side, in Munich (or Monaco? In Italian both cities are called Monaco), during a meeting of veterans from all nations that took part in WWII except Russia. I was looking for the French Clostermann, who wrote some books, the first very interesting, but the second full of those stereotypes about Italians, except that he admitted he never met us in flight. Then a guy approaches and asks me: "Are you Gorrini?" "Yes, I am" I answer. He was Peter Townsend, the British fighter ace, who spook perfectly Italian since he studied in Florence. "It was you on that CR.42 who shot me and hit me on the heel!" "So, if it was me, then you were that Hurricane who shot me and the bullets passed through my legs!" We became friends and each time he came to Italy I went to pick him at the airport. Since he was passionate by cars and I knew Eng. Ferrari, I brought him in Maranello where he could drive a "muletto" ("little mule", the Italian way to call a "spare car" in Formula 1)... he was like he was dreaming!
Q. And what happened after the Battle of Britain?
A. We went back, but before we had to remove the wheel fairings since there was so much snow (that the wheels got stuck). We went back because things were going bad in Africa. There was the Gen. Graziani's retreat and in a couple of days we were in Sirti, landing in very bad weather. But consider that during a transfer we never, I said never, lost a single airplane. From Mirafiori we landed in Pisa, then in Reggio Calabria, then in Pantelleria, Zuare (?), Castelbenito and finally Sirte, very near to the frontline. We cold see endless lines of disbanded soldiers, they were fleeing, nobody would stop them; we immediately set in the air to strafe English columns, in particular around Agedabia and we managed to keep them at bay. I remember that our Major with some other officers took position over Balbia (?), pistols in their hands, trying to stop and regroup these disbanded, while we kept on going and going, again and again (we went back only when we were out of ammos). I think that our participation was really important, and also that of the VIII group and others. We stayed there for some months. Conditions were disastrous, we ate only "gallette" (disgusting army dry biscuits, believe me, I tried them!) and cans, the galletta used to swell into the stomach at high altitude causing pain and swellings... we lack water, it was full of flies and scorpions. At the end they sent us back to have some rest and we left the aircrafts to the group of Vizzotto or Balio, I can't remember. We went back homeland, we had 20 days out and the they brought us to Caselle where we had some flights on the FIAT G.50, to end up with the Macchi MC.200, the "Saetta" (Lightning), a radial engine monoplane. Then from there we went to Greece at Araxos in 1941, near to the see. We did soeme protection cruises. I remember that Argostoli and Cefalonia were no-flight zones, by order of the HQ. I remember seeing one day, together with one wingman, a dark airplane flying towards Argostoli. I followed it and I was going to shoot it, when I saw the German crosses, but my wingman, a young Sergeant, thought that I missed it and he shot. The airplane was full of gasoline and went down.
There was a trial and, fortunately, the young guy was acquitted since the airplane fell on the ground (?? I believe the crew survived...).
We did many naval escorts, down to the Aegean sea.
At a certain point they called us back: our group, the XVIII, was autonomous and could be engaged everywhere. The other group, the XXIII, was over Malta. They sent us again in Northern Africa, this time with the Macchi 200.