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.
...
