jet aircraft in Italy?

[Nick Beale]

I'd just add my growing impression that to people in 1944-45, "all jets looked the same", perhaps because it was the absence of propellers that made the greatest impression on anyone who saw one of these aircraft, not the details of their shapes. I can think of at least two pilots who shot down an Ar 234 but claimed an Me 262 for.

Also, we tend to think of a bomber as being much bigger than a fighter but the Me 262 and Ar 234 were not so far apart in size (or so I thought when I built models of them when I was a boy!).

[maxjvb]

my eyewitness is a 84 age civil pilot that lived on the edge around the Airfield, entusiast in fling since ever. He confirmed me that was a ME 262 and not Arado ( he well know the planes), infact he think this plane was sent to Orio al Serio just for a Propaganda fly to give a hope to all Lufwaffe personnel in the base. The plane stayed at orio just a day.

[veltro]

Though absolutely respecting you and your source, such kind of unconfirmed (and most probably never confirmable) individual eyewitness account from memory, contrasting with all documented sources (and also, with all due respect, contrasting with plain logic and opportunity at that time of war and on Italian theatre), IMHO is unfortunately destined to remain just as it is, an unconfirmed memory.

[Nick Beale]

It's also important to establish what recognition aids would have been available to an Italian civilian at that time. Had accurate drawings, photographs or film of the Me 262 or Ar 234 been made public in Italy? If not, it suggests that the witness made a later identification, based on memory. If that was so, how long afterward did he associate what he had seen with the Me 262?