Luftwaffe Loss ...a P38 Lightning

[Alex Smart]

Further reading of Marco Mattioli's book on the P38 in Italian Service.

After the Germans took over Guidonia air base on the 10th September 1943

"So the Centro Sperimentale's Lightning ended its career with the Regia Aeronautica Italiana by passing to the German Luftwaffe, and met its end during the Allied bombing actions upon Guidonia on the 1st and 3rd of June 1944. The Italian Lightning , caught by surprise outside its hangar was totally destroyed and its wreckage were picked up and piled up on a corner south of the air base alongside the scrap heap of German aircraft and other prottypes previously destroyed."

Alex

[shooshoobaby]

Alex - I screwed up. Meant to say P - 38 was from 14th FIGHTER GROUP.
12th AF - sorry! No more info on Girnth. Hopefully a Luftwaffe historian can help.
This is an excellent book. photos and info on all captured A/C etc. plus other operations.
Another excellent book , "KG 200 , LW most secret unit" by Thomas and Ketley - Hikoki Publications
Cheers

[shooshoobaby]

Alex - I have found accounts of a P - 38 that landed in Sardinia at an Italian Air Base circa May 43 . The P - 38 was flown by pilot Guido Rossi and shot down several U.S. Bombers. He was shot down while attacking a B - 17 , ditched in the Med and rescued.
Mike

[Franz von Werra]

Hey guys, this is a heads-up...I came up with the Guido Rossi story while talking to a fellow Italian buff...And he nearly wanted to kill me! He explained that the only Lightning operated by Italy during WWII was flown by Tondi alone. Everything else is a very die-hard piece of misinformation which has been going on for YEARS!!

[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):

[Alex Smart]

hello Veltro,

A welcome responce.

Have seen the photos before.

There is one though that is not shown. It too is said to be a captured P38 but has different camoflage demarcation lines.

What of the 1st Fighter Group (P38's) Pilot who reported that he was shot down by a captured German P38 ( North Africa I beleive) on the 30th May 1943.

This was before the 12th June 1943 Sardinia landing Pilot and a/c serial number still undetermined as yet.

If both the Germans in N. Africa and also the Italians had captured P38's then it would fit the Rossi story of been shot down into the sea in one ( no date given for that event), this would also fit the Lerch report that he had no chance to fly the captured P38 due to it crashing before he had a chance to fly in it. While the other ended up at Rechlin as T9+XB for the 19th September 1943 Air Show and met its end during the Allied bombing actions upon Guidonia on the 1st and 3rd of June 1944. So when and why was it flown back to Italy ?

Martin Monti's stolen F5E serial 44-23725 an almost brand new a/c was flown into captivity by him on the 13th October 1944 and became T9+MK she was recaptured at Schwangau, Germany in May of 1945. She only had yellow undersides added after capture no other camoflage.

All for now

Great art work

Alex

[veltro]

Originally Posted by Alex Smart

There is one though that is not shown. It too is said to be a captured P38 but has different camoflage demarcation lines.

I would need precise reference of the photo you are speaking of. There was no other P-38 captured by the Italians or in Italian markings, so I really don't know what it was.

Originally Posted by Alex Smart

What of the 1st Fighter Group (P38's) Pilot who reported that he was shot down by a captured German P38 ( North Africa I beleive) on the 30th May 1943.

Certainly it wasn't an Italian one and I have no informations at all of any P-38 captured by the Germans in the Mediterranean...

At any rate, please trash in the dubstin any reference to Martin Caidin's "Guido Rossi", which was nothing more than the expanded version of a B-series tale involving wife of US bomber pilot going to bed with that Italish fictional character and then with the betrayed pilot managing to get his revenge by shooting down the P-38 with a YB-40... pityful, pathetic garbage, which shouldn't be touched even with pliers...

BTW, the story of Martin J. Monti was discovered by me in details and published at first in one article in 1992 (it is scanned in one of the links of my previous posts) and then in one of my books in 1996.

[Alex Smart]

Hello Ferdinando,

Thank you for your reply.

At any rate, please trash in the dubstin any reference to Martin Caidin's "Guido Rossi", which was nothing more than the expanded version of a B-series tale involving wife of US bomber pilot going to bed with that Italish fictional character and then with the betrayed pilot managing to get his revenge by shooting down the P-38 with a YB-40... pityful, pathetic garbage, which shouldn't be touched even with pliers...

I haven't got a clue about this, what this all about , some new film or other ?

The 1st Fighter Group Pilots report was of a German P38, not an Italian one.

As for the other photo it might be able to see it on the new LEMB website if it survived from the old one. I have not looked in that section of late.

All the best , have a great day

Alex

[veltro]

Originally Posted by Alex Smart

At any rate, please trash in the dubstin any reference to Martin Caidin's "Guido Rossi", which was nothing more than the expanded version of a B-series tale involving wife of US bomber pilot going to bed with that Italish fictional character and then with the betrayed pilot managing to get his revenge by shooting down the P-38 with a YB-40... pityful, pathetic garbage, which shouldn't be touched even with pliers...

I haven't got a clue about this, what this all about , some new film or other ?

To be precise, it was a novel titled (literally): "One of our fighters is shooting us down!" by Glenn Infield, published in early post-war years by an aviation magazine and whose plot was exactly as reported. This tale apparently fascinated Caidin, who made the story his own and proposed it again under his label...

It may sounds crazy but this is how it went...

[Alex Smart]

Hello,
Just to perhaps reopen this thread, I recently saw in a book on Italian P-38's a picture of the first one that was captured. Front right forward nose shot, shows four numbers on the nose that end with 76, Is it possible to match the "76" to a Serial number ?