Italo Balbo: the crack in the monolith.

Discussions on all aspects of Italy under Fascism from the March on Rome to the end of the war.
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gabriel pagliarani
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Italo Balbo: the crack in the monolith.

#1

Post by gabriel pagliarani » 12 Aug 2002, 16:22

Italian fascist party was not the monolith that somebody thinks about, this is an example.Maresciallo dell' Aria Italo Balbo (born in Quartesana June 6,1896 - K.I.A. in Tobruk June 28, 1940).Only 18 days after the Declaration of War held by Mussolini, Italo Balbo was killed by italian flak (friend fire)in the while he was landing in the Tobruk airport. He died as he lived, holding the cloche of its own Savoia Marchetti beautiful plane. Who really was Italo Balbo? An hero or a Fascist Party leader?Surely both of them and probably he was a man very much better of the rest of Party leadership.He took part in WW1 as volounteer among "Arditi d Assalto" (the actual "Col Moschin" elite rgt.)then he took part in Liberation of Fiume (actual Dubrovnik) following Gabriele D' Annunzio, the poet. He was "quadrumvir " (one of the 4 leaders) in the "March to Rome". He was Ministro dell' Aeronautica from 1929 to 1933 in the while he started the epoch of Italian Aeronautical Records leading successfully the massive raids to Chicago, Boston, New York, Rio de Janeiro ect. ect. Some of the italian aeronautical records still standing were achieved under his undoubtful lucky leadership. From the times of General Garibaldi and never before him, an italian leader was seen risking his own life in command of such high risk operations like a massive air-raid over Atlantic Ocean! When the City of New York and millions and millions of Americans tributed him triumph and honours ( the same given to the Lunar Conquerors of "Apollo 11" only 35 years later!) Mussolini began to be attacked from a tremendous gelousy of him! But Italo Balbo was untouchable, at the moment. All the people beloved him, probably as much as the same Dux. But Balbo, a true hero, was "semper fidelis" and he never thought to lead a golpe against the Duce.At the contrary the Dux removed him from the beloved aeronautics . Balbo was sent in Lybia as Governor with the hard job to estinguish the Arab riots...an unpopular work meaning the drop of a lot of blood from civilians. Probably the mean intention of Mussolini was in making "dirty hands" to his real competitor:(.. if your hands are dirty of blood as mine, you cannot say to be so much better than Iam!) But Balbo remained always friendof USA during the years from 1935 to death (..a little less of GB, of course..) and his feeling was not allowed from Ribbentrop that asked to Mussolini to remove both Ciano and Balbo. To kill Balbo was easy to do, but the killing of Ciano was possible only 3 years later, when the disaster was knocking at the door.

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ziggy wiseman
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italo balbo

#2

Post by ziggy wiseman » 16 Aug 2002, 15:21

Gabriel,you did not mentionned that as chief of "fascio de Ferrara",he crushed brutaly a farmer's strike in Trieste .

What do you think of it?


regards!


gabriel pagliarani
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A fascist is always a fascist

#3

Post by gabriel pagliarani » 17 Aug 2002, 02:57

I never said that Balbo was not a fascist! He had been the Federale of "Fascio di Ferrara" previously he became a Quadrumvir. He used violence as a political way to give effectiveness to the power of Fascism sistematically. But I cannot talk about all his life in a small container like an e-mail and I told about only the iron hand he used against arab riots in Lybia because he used macine guns, cannons, dum-dum and gases against them! I have no evidence of such an extreme violence in Italy..so I think the worst things Balbo did in Lybia, non in Italy! The other thing I have emphatized is that a so violent fascist leader was so much beloved in USA and this statement is not my own but an historical evidence. When he was in the Goverment in 1935 as Ministro dell' Aeronautica he arrived to sign a technical collaboration with USA reflected in the joint development of Seversky P-35, father of Republic P-47 Thunderbolt fighter
and in series Reggiane Re 2000, Re 2002, Re 2005, Re 2006. If you watch carefully the wings of such planes, you can realize they were designed by the same authors. And this is only a small evidence...

varjag
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What's that bird?

#4

Post by varjag » 18 Aug 2002, 13:34

Hey, Gabriel Pagliarani - what's that bird in your logo? It's not a goose that alerted the romans, it's not an eagle- so, is it a raven? The wisest of all birds ?

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Marcus
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#5

Post by Marcus » 18 Aug 2002, 13:38

Varjag,

It's the eagle from the RSI flag.

/Marcus

gabriel pagliarani
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Reply to the australian

#6

Post by gabriel pagliarani » 18 Aug 2002, 16:59

Like Marcus said it was the eagle in the flag of Northern Fascist Republic of Italy, just called Repubblica Sociale Italiana. I choose that eagle because my father Alberto served this flag with honour. Surely it was not the wisest flag because many people just think that a man upholding his own honour of soldier is more stupid than a soldier ready to change allied with enemies when they are still bombing the towns of his own homeland. Do you know the story of the Red Baron? No? For this reason now I' ll send you the flag of dad.

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Turiddu
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#7

Post by Turiddu » 04 Sep 2002, 05:56

Balbo was a great man, Fascist or not a man who believed and acted by this motto: live dangerously!
Gabriele,

Onore a Italo Balbo and your father.
At the very end, honour to all the cadutti (fallen?) of any sides of a war.

By the way, currently I donnot see your Aquila anymore... I use it since April, hope we would not have any problems for that. :wink:

Turiddu

gabriel pagliarani
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The eagle

#8

Post by gabriel pagliarani » 04 Sep 2002, 11:39

Caro Turi,
hold your beatiful eagle! I asked Mark LV to change the avatar with the face of Dad besides its own Fiat G55 in late 1944. Could I ask more than this honour? About Balbo a lot of people now think that is not possible for a fascist to be an hero. I want to remember to those that the triumph in New York was not only made by italo-americans but a lot of WASPs were there honouring Balbo on Broadway. They were not wrong, because Balbo is really an hero, today like 70 years ago.

gabriel pagliarani
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Some doubts about..

#9

Post by gabriel pagliarani » 19 Sep 2002, 17:21

"la Repubblica" is an independent (..but left parties oriented) newspaper: I'll translate without any comment. Italian speaking people could control on the enclosed page.

TRANSLATION:
CIAMPINO:"..THE NAME-PLATE DEDICATED TO BALBO: MUST BE THROWED AWAY.."

BEGINNING:
" The name-plate with the name of Italo Balbo posed in the large square facing Ciampino Airport must be throwed away!" Paolo Cento, deputy of Green Party, is saying this phrase now following the querelle moved to the changes in attributing new place-names to the whole zone. "the story of the Flyier - Cento explicates as follows- and Quadrumvir of the National Fascist Party besmirchs our Republican Values. The autorization given to give up such a name-plate is a grave misdeed, because Balbo is notorius by mean of his own squadristic action". But Government replies that the square will not change the name previously assigned to Balbo. "The putting up of the name-plate, besides agreeable( so the" under-secretary" to Defence Filippo Berselli said as Government responsible) was decided some years ago, when Ministry to Defence was Sergio Mattarella ( member of a left party- note of translater)" In the while the AN party group-leader in the Provincia di Roma Piergiorgio Benvenuti is saying that in the Capital a comitee will be formed with the mission to assign to a street the name of Italo Balbo. Leader of such a comitee will be a nephew of the Flyier. END. :mrgreen:

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ziggy wiseman
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Italo Balbo

#10

Post by ziggy wiseman » 21 Sep 2002, 01:40

Gabriel,a friend of mine told me that Italo Balbo flew to Montreal, Canada with about 20 other planes,just before the war.
Do you have any details on that?

Regards,
Zigmund Weissman

gabriel pagliarani
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Windy City

#11

Post by gabriel pagliarani » 21 Sep 2002, 04:04

Sir Zygmund,
Surely Balbo was in the Windy City during his second flight, from 1st July to 12th August 1933, he comanded twenty-two seaplanes Savoia Marchetti S55X to the United States. He was welcomed like a hero and his triumph was almost unprecedented in history. The 7th Street in Chicago was named after him, President Roosevelt invited him to lunch, and the Sioux Indian tribe appointed him chief, with the name of "Flying Eagle". A fire due to a lack of gasoline destroyed his own seaplane on the water: therefore he had been in Quebec before the fire of Chicago. For such a seaplane a flight from the canadian shore to the american shore of the same lake was a play for kids. I have no photo of the atlantic flyers in Canada.

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ziggy wiseman
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personal i.d. on his plane?

#12

Post by ziggy wiseman » 09 Oct 2002, 19:26

I read in a magazine today that had his own i.d. painted under his plane's right wing.Supposely has:I-Balb

didn't find any photos .

gabriel pagliarani
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Incredible

#13

Post by gabriel pagliarani » 20 Oct 2002, 22:46

You are right. Millions people looked at it and hundreds of photos were made from reporters and simple citizens of all West Coast. But not a photo is still available at today....Mussolini censored all communications about Balbo by mean of his own jealousy: he thought that Italians would forgive the Balbo's Raids as soon as possible avoiding his own image. But also in America Roosevelt's government thought the same. Balbo was too much fascist for Americans and too less fascist for Italians: a perfect candidate to the morgue. As it happened.

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