[veltro]

Sorry, but no Me 262 did ever operate or flew in Italy, as evidenced in the postings of this thread and by the results of many years of researches.

The personal experience acquired through all this time, taught me to be extremely vary of "eyewitnesses" which claimed sightings of all kinds, most of those with hindsight reached through informations and inputs often gained only after the war, a sort of "layered" memory.

Even ANR pilots themselves did seem to remember "Me 262s" which in all cases proved to be either one of the three Ar 234s briefly based in Campoformido since late February 1945.

As already said, the only two airfields used by the Ar 234 (or by jets) were Lonate Pozzolo and Campoformido (not to mention a short stay in Osoppo of one Arado which required RATO rockets assistance to take-off) and each of their flights was duly reported, and also, due to the the very tiny quantities allotted of their special fuel, those were carefully placed only in the bases they used, and Orio al Serio wasn't among the recipients.

Last but not least, due to the very classified knowledge and use of the German jets, their movements were duly tracked and reported on documents both by the Germans and by their enemy, the Allies. The absence of any trace of such presence is a further evidence, IMHO.