Luftwaffe Loss ...a P38 Lightning

[veltro]

Exactly... please stop all this "Guido Rossi" nonsense! It is a heritage of the fantasy of Martin Caidin and has been doing damage for years...

There was only one P-38 in Regia Aeronautica ranks,which was captured on 12 June 1943 in Sardinia where a ferrying US pilot landed by mistake due to the malfunctioning of the compass.

Soon brought to the Italian Test Center of Guidonia (near Rome), this aircraft was flown *with Italian markings* by Col. Angelo Tondi (Chief test pilot of the center) in half a dozen scrambles against USAAF bombers attacking Rome and Central Italy's targets.

On 11 August 1943 Col. Tondi intercepted off the coast the B-17F s/n 42-30307 of 419th BS, 301st BG and shot down it at 12.00 hrs*.

This was the only successful interception completed by this aircraft and soon after the P-38 was grounded due to the bad quality of the Italian petrol that had corroded the fuel tanks.

* (cfr. Missing Air Crew Report n.490 available at the National Archives)


If you want to see at a few photographs of this Lightning (some totally unpublished), have a look here (the images are extracted from the forum of the 150° Gruppo Aut. Caccia Terrestre at http://www.150gct.it/modules.php?nam...&highlight=p38 and http://www.150gct.it/modules.php?nam...&highlight=p38):