“I cavalieri erranti” ("the wandering knights") - a book about the 412a Squadriglia in East Africa during the Second World War.

[edwest2]

Italian language. A description in English is here:

http://surfcity.kund.dalnet.se/

Usual disclaimer,
Ed

[Håkan]

Hello,

This book is very much ”a labour of love” which have taken many years to finalise. During the writing the authors have been in contact with many of the relatives to the pilots and ground crews and have collected a unique amount of information of this unit.

It’s a day by day, blow by blow account, with thorough research from both sides. It includes much new information, at least for me, and makes much earlier writing about the air war in East Africa obsolete even if it focuses on the 412a Squadriglia.
All pilots of the unit have their own biographical profile.
Most of the pictures in the book are new to me!

A very highly recommended book even if it’s in Italian!

Since the book is privately published it’s only available through Ludovico Slongo, who is a member of this forum.

//Håkan

[CENTURION]

Hello,
wonderful book indeed. It’s a must for anyone interested in the Regia Aeronautica and the air war in East Africa during the Second World War.
The authors did an excellent work, not just in conducting an accurate and meticulous research in both Allied and Italian archives, revealing previously unknown details, but also accompanying the text with outstanding and mostly unpublished photos (each one consistent with the relevant text page) with very detailed captions.
Even the model makers will be satisfied with a very interesting chapter on camouflage and heraldry. The eight profiles in 1/32 scale drawn by Camillo Cordasco and the seven colour figures of the pilots by Raffaele Ruggeri are perfect.
Even though the text is in Italian, the very detailed and self-explicative tables containing the list of the Squadron’s claims - with date, hour, type of the aircraft claimed, aircraft piloted, location of the claim, Commonwealth match – and losses, allow anyone to understand the Squadron achievements during this hard-fought campaign.
Anyway I saw here: http://stonebooks.com/index.shtml that the author offer an automatic translation in English printed.
Marco

[Gianandrea Bussi]

In order to highlight the accuracy and deepness of the work made by Ludovico Slongo and co-authors it must be taken in account that very few of the the documents about the Regia Aeronautica activity in East Africa survived and are held at the Archive of the Italian Air Force Historical Office.
So, the authors have departed from the well recorded operations of the RAF and SAAF units and cross-checked them with infos from a multiplicity of italian sources: official documents, letters, flightlogs, books ect. They probably checked all the available italian sources about this subject, producing a very detailed day by day account.
In the text and in the footnotes are included the serial number of the British and South African aircraft involved in every mission plus all the italian Matricole Militari that the authors managed to discover.
The number and quality of the photographs published - picturing both english and italian aircraft, personnel and airport – are really noteworthy.
Very usefull are the 20 pages tables with claims and losses and the name index.
So, it’s really a “must”…..
Gianandrea

[Lorenzo]

Beautiful book that deals with a very specific topic, namely the history of the 412a Squadriglia Caccia in AOI, and through this story allows a look at what the work of the Regia Aeronautica in AOI was.

The level of detail of the research could not be deeper, and to embellish the text there are extracts from the memories of the survivors, images in many cases never seen before, a section dedicated to the individual stories of all the pilots of the unit, and very accurate tables of the victories and the losses of the 412a Squadriglia Caccia.

A book absolutely recommended to any enthusiast of the aeronautical history of the Second World War.

Lorenzo

[Edward]

Sample pages from the book can be seen at the fb page "GAVS - Gruppo Amici Velivoli Storici" - date 21 September 2023.

https://www.facebook.com/www.gavs.it

video showing a flip-though of the book.

https://fb.watch/nSB7Pas6kh/

[Orwell1984]

Received my copy here in Canada.

On first glance a very well produced book with lots of interesting information.

An English translation was included free of charge so that will help me out as my Italian is very rusty.

Congratulations to the authors.

[Martin Gleeson]

I have been greatly interested in the East African Air War of 1940-41 since reading the series of articles in 'AIR PICTORIAL' magazine in the mid-1980s. The authors were Christopher Shores and Corrado Ricci, the latter a veteran of the campaign. The 412 Squadriglia C.T. was the stand out unit for me and I would have love to have learnt more about them. Now, almost 40 years later, my wish has been answered with the publication in Italy of 'I CAVALIERI ERRANTI'.
I think it is a magnificent work. Very well researched, well printed and with good photo reproduction. The authors also sent a very adequate English translation. I particularly enjoyed the pilot biographies, most unknown to me. The detailed loss and victory lists at the end, with match-ups for the Commonwealth victory claims/losses (or not) are excellent in my opinion.
I don't know the authors, but I wish to think them for this book and the many years of work they clearly put into it. All the more important considering the loss of relevant documents from that time.
This book is a pleasure to have.

Martin Gleeson.