Italian pilot Vito Rinaldi
 

Hello everybody,

During the last autumn, I’ve had the opportunity to work through the logbook of an Italian pilot – Vito Rinaldi, who gained some notoriety while claiming an British bomber during the night of 7 December over Tripoli and he was awarded with an Medaglia d’argento al valor militare.
Rinaldi continued to served through out the war in both day and night fighter units (he claimed another night victory on 7 December 1941 (one year after his first claim)).
However during 1943 he served mostly over the Aegean and while doing this he claimed a number of victories. According to his logbook, he totally claimed 9 and 9 shared victories. According to a “official” career summary that I also have, he claimed 6 and 11 shared victories. During his time in the Aegean, the Germans also decorated him.
Rinaldi doesn’t feature in any list I have of known Italian aces and I do know that a claim in a pilot’s logbook isn’t automatically credited as an official victory but all the pages in his logbook is signed by his various commanding officers, thus giving some creditability to his claims.
Since I don’t have any good information regarding Italian fighter claims over the Aegean in 1943 I was wondering if somebody could help me verify any of the claims or combats.

All available information is present at my site at: http://surfcity.kund.dalnet.se/italy_rinaldi.htm

Best wishes/Håkan

Re: Italian pilot Vito Rinaldi
 

Good evening Håkan,

that's an interesting guy. He might even have scored more Macchi M.C.200 kills than Vittorio Minguzzi, thus being a candidate for the top-ace-rank of that aircraft type.
However, he's not included in "Italian Aces of World War 2" by Massimello and Apostolo.
I wish I knew the decimals of his shared kills...
I also have an M.C.200 thread:
http://forum.12oclockhigh.net/showthread.php?t=43367

Cheers,

Michael

Re: Italian pilot Vito Rinaldi
 

In the recently published "Gli Assi italiani della Regia Aeronautica" by Giovanni Massimello (http://forum.12oclockhigh.net/showthread.php?t=63867) Rinaldi is included in the section "assi non accertati" (not ascertained aces) with two documented claims and nine not documented claims. In the same section are well known pilots like, e.g., Bonzano, Fanali, Ceoletta, Vizzotto.
Was the author aware of your logbook?

Most of the claims of Rinaldi had been made in 1943 and most of the italian documents of this period are lost.

In order to identify the units operating in Greece it could be eventually useful to know the names of their commanders as written in the logbook

I can add to your page devoted to this pilot that the MAVM was given with decree 29 may 1941. I've not found mention of a MBVM to Rinaldi, medal mentioned in your text.

Best regards


Gianandrea

Re: Italian pilot Vito Rinaldi
 

Good evening Gentlemen,

the most intrigueing issue about Vito Rinaldi is that his Macchi M.C.200 score might be higher than 10 (shared kills counted as decimals), if his shared kills were half-shares, thereby becoming the ranking ace of that aircraft.

Cheers,

Michael