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Today I got my copy of the new book "I cavalieri erranti" by Ludovico Slongo, Setefano Lazzaro, Eugenio Eusebi, Michele Palermo and Danilo Ventura, published by Gruppo Amici Velivoli Storici. It is the definitive account of the airwar in East Africa fought by the 412a Squadriglia Caccia...

I have read the on 30 January 2023 the new book by the late Maurizio Brescia (who sadly passed away this summer) and Augusto De Toro "Italian Heavy Cruisers: From Trento to Bolzano" will be available in the bookstores. It is the translation of the booklets published by Storia Militare and...

The Italian Armed Forces and the main veterans' associations publish periodical reviews which often contain articles about their history. In this section of an Italian forum you will find the links to all these periodicals: https://tavolemilitari.forumfree.it/?f=64338746

I have read "Mussolini e i suoi generali", i.e. the Italian edition of John Gooch's "Mussolini and His Generals. The Armed Forces and Fascist Foreign Policy, 1922-1940", Cambridge University Press, 2008, and I would like to provide my review. This book covers the interwar years and is focused...

On the Axis History Forum there has been a recent inquiry about photos of the Italian camp for Soviet POWs in Karjnskaya https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=75&t=260315 . The issue of 2017 of the "Bollettino d'Archivio dell'Ufficio Storico dell'Esercito" contains an excellent article...

Here you can read the report made by the US intelligence in 1944 about the Campini-Caproni C.C.2 aircraft and other projects by ing. Secondo Campini, plus some details about the Reggiane RE.2005SF: https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/102328376 . In pages 63-67 there are the only technical...

The present military disaster in Afghanistan, which is an obvious outcome for a campaign based upon the assumption that no friendly human losses are acceptable and therefore that troops must be kept in their bases, leaving the true control of territory to the enemy, has made me recall Badoglio's...

I am somewhat surprised to see that apparently nobody in the English-speaking world has noticed that Prince Philip's obituaries (for example https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9456333/Price-Philip-dies-Sea-Lord-pays-tribute-highlights-role-Battle-Cape-Matapan.html or...

In Italy there are dozens of military museums, although most are quite small and rather disappointing. They also tend to be focalized on the First World War or the Risorgimento, rather than on the Second World War. I would like to report some which I have visited in the past years and I think...

The Littorio class battleships had a 12 m rangefinder made by the San Giorgio company, but I think that this measure is better understood in a photo like this than by a mere number: source...

This page is about the two museums kept by the Italian Navy: https://www.marina.difesa.it/cosa-facciamo/per-la-cultura/musei/Pagine/musei_marina.aspx

This page lists the museums kept by the Italian Army: http://www.esercito.difesa.it/en/History/museums

I admit I am not a keen reader of post-war memoirs, given that quite often they were written under the heavy influence of the political climate and/or dictated by the will of casting a positive light on the author's deeds during and before the war. Not rarely, unless they had been written by a...

The Gruppo Amici Velivoli Storici has created an unofficial register of the "matricole militari" (serial numbers or tail numbers) of Italian aircrafts: https://gavs.it/rmi/domestic

The Italian Ministry of Defence provides two databases for the Italian military personnel who died or are missing in the world wars: https://www.difesa.it/Il_Ministro/CadutiInGuerra/Pagine/default.aspx You must search by surname and then you get the date and operating theater (not the exact...

This is the official database of the recipients of the most important Italian awards (onorificenze) https://www.quirinale.it/onorificenze.

Marshals of Italy (singular: Maresciallo d'Italia, plural: Marescialli d'Italia) were awarded a baton, as usual in all the countries with this rank. These are two photos of Marshal Pietro Badoglio's baton, the only one, as far as I know, currently on display in a Museum (Museo Storico...

The Almanacco Storico Navale by the Marina Militare Italiana provides a list of all the ships which served in the Italian Navy in the past, with details for many of them. They can be searched by the type of ship or in alphabetical order ("Ricerca per nome" on the bottom of the page).

Erminio Bagnasco and Augusto de Toro have published a true masterpiece, a must have not only for people insterested in the Regia Marina in WW2, but in general for everybody interested in this naval conflict and in the technique of warships. This masterpiece is the well known "The Littorio Class...

A huge problem which does not seem to bother historians much is the disastrous situation of primary sources about Italy in WW2. I won't touch the matter of the gaps in Italian military and State archives, caused not only by destructions during the War, but also by selective weeding by both the...