Longoni A. - Facismo e Aviazione, aviators in the fascist revolution (1931) (ebook)

Fascismo e Aviazione

Gli Aviatori nella rivoluzione fascista

Attilio Longoni – 1931

Edizione Azzurre (Milano)

Or how the totalitarian regimes of the 20th century used aviation as a tool. A work of real historical interest, provided that the author's Mussolinian propaganda logorrhoea is filtered out:

"To the aviators of yesterday, today and tomorrow.

I wanted to sum up, however briefly, from the earliest beginnings, even before the war, the admirable work of our aviation, since the audacity of our Roman spirit began to measure itself against the unknown element.

Then came the epic of war, when the battalion of volunteer aviators was formed; the truly legendary era when the human factor was everything in the aerial battle. When the aviator had only two fragile wings and the uncertainty of the primordial aircraft demanded icy fearlessness from the human heart.

Then, thanks to the sagacity of the war makers who trained the different specialities, individual exploits multiplied. And here are the heroic pages, here are the tireless aces, a marvel of history itself. These are names that will never be forgotten, names that will never fall from the hearts of Italians. This period ends with a picture of the war power achieved by the air force at the time of the Battle of Vittorio Veneto.

We come to the third phase: the appalling year 1919, the anti-Italian punishment.

The Fascist airmen, the souls of true and frank aviators, understanding all the torment of these heroes who, after having risked their lives in a thousand terrible dares, found themselves prevented, precisely by those who foolishly governed the Fatherland, from exercising the finest heroism, rebelled and joined Mussolini's legions to save Italian aviation from the total destruction of its documented values.

Just as the first chapter aims to show that Mussolini did not need 'professors' even for the problem of aviation, since with his 1919 sensibility he already had a sunny vision of the needs inherent in the problem of national aviation, so the last chapter summarises and engraves for history the grandiose work accomplished by the Duce.

That says it all.

The author, Attilio Longoni (Monza, 1 October 1885 - 8 April 1932) was an Italian aviation pioneer, journalist and politician. In 1919, he was secretary of the "Fasci italiani di combattimento".

During the First World War, he became a student pilot in the air force and then operated in Macedonia and Albania. In March 1919, he was one of the founders and municipal secretary of the Milan Fascio. On 9 May 1919, he became national secretary of the Italian Fasci di Combattimento until the following August. He took part in the March on Rome on 28 October 1922. He was editor-in-chief of "Secolo illustrato", which he left to found the weekly "La Gazzetta dell'Aviazione" at the end of 1919. In 1922 he founded the monthly aviation magazine L'Ala d'Italia, which he ran until his death. In 1920, he founded the Associazione Italiana Aeronautica and then, in 1925, the Lega Italiana Aeronautica. In 1931, he was General Secretary of the "Gente di mare e dell'aria" corporation. In 1932, he was also President of the Milan Aero Club.

392 pages - in Italian - PDF download