Death of Marshall Balbo July 1940:

[Brian]

Hi guys

Extract from TIME magazine circa November 1941:

Correspondent Gordon Sinclair of the Toronto Star last week quoted Air Commodore Raymond Collishaw, R.A.F. Commander in Egypt at the time:

"Far out in the desert some of our British armored-car men were lost and dying of thirst and starvation. . . . They were in terribly bad condition. Balbo, who was of impulsive and generous nature, heard of their plight and got into a bombing plane, took an escort of two fighters and personally flew to the rescue of these British soldiers. Having picked them up, he flew the troops to an Italian hospital, then started back to Tobruk; his head quarters. . . .


"At the moment when he came back over Tobruk our forces opened a bombing attack on the town, a queer coincidence. Our men were bombing from 20,000 feet and Balbo flew in at 2,000 feet. . . . When Balbo came over, an Italian cruiser in the harbor . . . opened fire and struck the Marshal's plane with a direct hit. . . . All this talk about him having been betrayed into an ambush was utter rot. . . . He was really a first-class chap . . . and I'm glad of a chance to clear this business up."

Is there any substance to the first part of the story?

Cheers
Brian

[Ludovico Slongo]

Dear Brian,
it resembles something that happened some days before, on June the 21st.
From "Desert Prelude":
Six CR.32s of the 92a Sq. (Cap. Martino Zannier, Ten. Ranieri Piccolomini, Serg. Magg. Guglielmo Gorgone, Serg. Vito Copersino, Serg. Nadio Monti and Serg. Ernesto Pavan) and three from the 93a Sq. (Ten. Alberto Argenton, Serg. Italo Bertinelli and Serg. Roberto Lendaro) took off at 09:40 and attacked enemy vehicles south of Bir El Gobi, escorted by CR.42s from the 13o Gr. The fire from the CR.32s, which attacked in single file, stopped an enemy armoured car and forced two other armoured cars of the same formation, less seriously damaged, to flee.
At 12.30, Marshal Italo Balbo arrived at Bir el Gobi with his personal SM 79 a few minutes after a RAF raid that had killed fifteen soldiers of the resident 2nd Libyan Division (probably 113 Sqn). While approaching to land, Balbo discovered a British armoured car only six hundred metres away from the airstrip. Not scared at all Balbo performed a kind of “touch and go” landing, remaining on Bir el Gobi barely the time necessary to dismount from his plane. While his second pilot took off again he ran for the 2nd Libyan camp, and ordered the soldiers to attack the British armoured car.
The initial scepticism of the Libyan soldiers quickly changed to surprise when it was discovered that the armoured car was in fact so close to their base, and finally turned to enthusiasm when it was discovered that the British vehicle, already damaged, was unable to defend itself, and was captured with its four man crew. It was the armoured car of T. S. M. Howarth, commander of N°2 Troop of “B” Sqn, 11th Hussars. Balbo mounted the turret of the armoured car (a Morris CS9/LAC) and made a spirited and galvanizing speech to the Libyan soldiers, that at the end forgot in high spirits the losses previously suffered.
The armoured car was obviously that damaged by the planes of 8o Gr. and was one of the very first captured by the Italian Army in Libya. At the end, Balbo returned to Tobruk, landing with the four British prisoners, while the armoured car was towed by the Libyans inside their camp."
Two photos of Balbo and the Hussar's crew are present in the book.
Balbo died on June the 28th, that day he wasn't coming back from any form of rescue mission.
Ciao
Ludovico