Italian pilot Vito Rinaldi

[Håkan]

Hello everybody,

During the last autumn, I’ve had the opportunity to work through the logbook of an Italian pilot – Vito Rinaldi, who gained some notoriety while claiming an British bomber during the night of 7 December over Tripoli and he was awarded with an Medaglia d’argento al valor militare.
Rinaldi continued to served through out the war in both day and night fighter units (he claimed another night victory on 7 December 1941 (one year after his first claim)).
However during 1943 he served mostly over the Aegean and while doing this he claimed a number of victories. According to his logbook, he totally claimed 9 and 9 shared victories. According to a “official” career summary that I also have, he claimed 6 and 11 shared victories. During his time in the Aegean, the Germans also decorated him.
Rinaldi doesn’t feature in any list I have of known Italian aces and I do know that a claim in a pilot’s logbook isn’t automatically credited as an official victory but all the pages in his logbook is signed by his various commanding officers, thus giving some creditability to his claims.
Since I don’t have any good information regarding Italian fighter claims over the Aegean in 1943 I was wondering if somebody could help me verify any of the claims or combats.

All available information is present at my site at: http://surfcity.kund.dalnet.se/italy_rinaldi.htm

Best wishes/Håkan