Ernesto Botto – Wikipedia

Ernesto Botto (Turin, 8 November 1907 – Turin, 9 December 1984) was an Italian soldier and aviator, ax of aviation with five aerial victories obtained in the Spanish civil war and in the Second World War. He reached the rank of Colonel and was Undersecretary of State and Chief of Staff of the Air Force of the Italian Social Republic.

He was born in Turin on November 8, 1907, Ernesto Botto enlisted as the official student of the Aeronautical Royal in 1929, attending the “Grifo” course of the Aeronautical Academy then based in Caserta, obtaining the airplane pilot patent in 1932 and coming appointed the following year second lieutenant of the role of sailors. The same year he was promoted Lieutenant Instructor at the Caccia di Castiglione del Lago school. In 1936 he was assigned to the 57th group of the 1st Terrestrial Caccia Stormo and promoted to Captain.

In 1937, assigned to the 4th terrestrial hunting flock, he commanded the 32nd hunting squadron in the Spanish civil war. On October 12, 1937 his squadron took place together with the 31st hunting squadron of the captain Luigi Borgogno and during a clash in Fuentes de Ebro was hit by a bullet in the right leg that was fractured. However, he managed to return to the base and was hospitalized for a long time at the Saragozza hospital, where however it was necessary to amputate part of the right leg, then replaced with an artificial limb.

He went to visit with the crutches to his department, he was moved by noting that all the planes had been decorated with the symbol of a “iron leg” in his honor and since then this was his nickname. ^[first] Upon returning home, he was acclaimed and celebrated and decorated with solemn ceremony at the altar of the homeland with the gold medal for military valor. The 32nd squadron was officially baptized “iron leg”. ^[first] For a long period he was not recalled in service, since his conditions were evaluated unsuitable for piloting, but in 1938, after training piloting despite his condition, he was recalled as commander of the 73rd hunting squadron of the 4th Wing at the Gorizia airport . ^[2]

In 1939 he was promoted major, then in 1940 in Libya, head of the 9th group ^[3] Of the 4th Stormo Caccia, he suffered a serious head injury in a road accident that made him definitively unsuitable on the fly. In 1941 Lenent Colonel was promoted and in 1943 Commander of the Udine Caccia school, then in Gorizia. Five wins during the Spanish civil war and three are generally attributed to him during the Second World War, which therefore make him an ace of aviation. ^[4]

From September 1943 to January 1944 with the Social Republic [ change | Modifica Wikitesto ]

Botto was surprised by the news of the armistice of September 8 in Gorizia. He went to Rome, discussed together with the Aerial Brigade General Arrigo Tessari (Commander of the 53rd Stormo), ^[5] To Colonel Tito Falconi (driving the 3rd Stormo) ^[6] And to various other officers such as Colonel Angelo Tondi, Personal Pilot of Mussolini, of the opportunity to set up a “Foreign Air Foreign Legion” alongside the Luftwaffe which, although the diffidence gained by some officers towards the Germans who had already interned thousands of Italian military soldiers , was seen by them as the only ally to fight the allied aviations that were bombing Italy’s soil. ^[7]

Botto was about to be deported to Germany having refused to collaborate with the Germans, when on September 24 he was designated by Benito Mussolini (freed by the Germans on September 12) as a state -of -the -state Undersecretary of the Republican Air Force, with the task of reconstituting one as soon as possible efficient air force. His name was made by General Rodolfo Graziani, Minister of National Defense, who wanted him despite the only 36 years and the degree of Lieutenant Colonel at the head of the aerial force, where, however, they were in force general and officials older than him, both for The consideration he enjoyed in the aviation environment, both for the decoration to military valor. ^[8] Botto, who had learned of his appointment from the radio, designated as a chief of staff of the Air Force Giuseppe Baylon. ^[9] Botto radio calls were of fundamental importance to recall many aviators under the flags of the Italian Social Republic, disoriented by the chaos followed by 8 September.

On October 14, he published a announcement in which he gave time to all Air Force staff from 18 to 28 October to present themselves in the collection centers to return to service. ^[ten] The idea of ​​an independent Italian aviation in the territory occupied by the Wehrmacht was strongly contrasted by the German Generalfeldmarschall Wolfram von Richthofen, commander of the Luftflotte 2 engaged in the Italian theater, so much so as to ask for the cancellation of the Botto call, also because two days before he had Already given provisions to begin to recruit the staff to create a “Italian foreign legion” inserted in the staff of the Luftwaffe. ^[11]

Botto was adamant and continued to trust his republican aeronautics, officially sorted on October 27th. Three days before bang, thanks to the support of Mussolini and Graziani, he had obtained directly from the Luftwaffe Commander, the ReichsmaRSCHALL Hermann Göring, met in Berlin, the cessation of the enlargement of Italian soldiers in the Luftwaffe and the return of most of the aircraft and the Materials required after September 8, ^[11] with which the Aeronautics of Salò actually could become an operating force. ^[twelfth] Botto’s commitment led the aeronautics of the Arsi to have around 35,000 men in 1944, 73,000 considering the detached soldiers at the German commands. ^[13]

The disagreements with some exponents of the fascist hierarchy, first of all the powerful Cremonese Gerarch Roberto Farinacci who repeatedly attacked him in his newspaper ^[14] The fascist regime ^[15] And his hostile attitude towards the Germans, who underlined his dubious fascist faith, created a tension that led Botto to ask, in January 1944, to be exempted from the assignment. Among the causes of the rupture, the request for flour to make all the military loyalty to fascism and the replacement of the military greeting with the Roman greeting, requests to which bang opposed and actually for a time distinguished the aviators from the other soldiers. ^[16]

Mussolini accepted the resignation, which for various reasons became effective only in early March 1944, when Botto was replaced by General Arrigo Tessari more welcome to the German allies. ^{[4] [17]} The news created discontent in many of the aviators who had decided to enlist in the aviation of the Republic of Salò mainly to respond to the appeal of a fighter who also estimated for his personal vicissitudes and for having refused to escape the service, even with one severe impairment. ^[first] He retired to Turin, where thanks to his state of service, he did not suffer even from the partisan forces that, on the contrary, protected the safety during the civil war, despite having covered summit assignments in the Social Republic.

He replied to the request of the Epraction Commission that investigated all Italian state officials after the war, removing those more compromised with the regime and requiring others to fill in special questionnaires, not to consider it necessary to answer, since everything concerned him was verifiable in his booklet military, the official documentation that follows each military and reports all the data collected during the career. ^[first] He joined the Italian social movement and in 1951 he was elected municipal councilor of Turin, ^[18] but he was forced to resign. ^[first] He died in Turin on 9 December 1984. The Air Force web portal proposed a page, entitled ” The great aviators “, where the major historical personalities of Italian aviation are mentioned, placing a bang between them. ^[19]

Gold medal for military valor

‘ Volunteer on a war mission for the affirmation of the fascist ideal, he proved to be in every circumstance pilot from the hunt for indomitable value. Commander of exceptional skill and iron will, he took, at the head of his squadron, in bitter fighting, five individual and fifteen collective victories. In the sky of Aragon, an enemy formation attacked impetuously, canceled a serious situation of numerical and tactical inferiority with strenuous combativity and personally knocked down an opponent. Struck by Proietto who shattered a femur, he did not give up from the fight until, paralyzed in the movements, he fell for two thousand meters. Managed to put the aircraft back and land in a field, to the superiors who came despite being in desperate physical conditions, he serenely exposed the events of the fight. Amputated of one leg, gave wonderful proof of the fortress of mind and spiritual purity, showing itself grieved only because mutilation removed a pilot from the cause. For long days, between life and death, he was to his comrades of very bright example for the serenity and the high feeling that is of the heroes. Cielo de Fuentes de Ebro, May 5 -12 October 1937 . [20] »

Silver medal for military valor

‘ Ecomparable hunting pilot for audacity and exceptional appraisal, a mutilated hero of a leg of the Spanish war, voluntarily offered himself for the new pipes to the homeland in arms, reconfirming his admirable qualities of commander and fighter in numerous war actions. At the head of his wingmen, the machine gun of a equipment of an enemy airport destroyed various aircraft, and, during harsh air fights in the marble sky, reported a few meters from the ground, reported repeated victories against superior forces. Bright example of the highest military virtues. Heaven of Mediterranean and Marmarica, 2 July-22 October 1940 . »

• Mirko Molteni, The Italian aviation 1940-1945-War actions and operational choices , Bologna, Odoya, 2012, ISBN 978-88-6288-144-9.
• Franco Pagliano, Italian aviators: 1940-1945 , Milan, Ugo Mursia Editore, 2004, ISBN 88-425-3237-1.
• Gianni rina, The desperate – The tragedy of the Italian Air Force in the Second World War , Milan, Mondadori, 1993, ISBN 88-04-44940-3.

Periodic

• Gregory you choose, Because Botto left the republican aeronautics , in Military history , nº 57, year VI, June 1998, ISSN 1122-5289.
• Daniele Lembo, A.N.R. – a hunting aviation , in Planes in history , Supplement to planes in history nº 75, December 2010-Genoa 2011, ISSN 1591-1071.