SOUTHERN THEATRE: Daffy Dive Bombers

Before he plunged into a war he thought was already won, Benito Mussolini used to talk of a daredevil air squadron called “I Disperati”—the desperate ones. These brave men, when the proper time came, would climb into the air in planes packed with TNT and dive to their death and to the glory of the fatherland smack into the middle of enemy ships.

Last week I Disperati had not yet shown their sacrificial heads, but for the first time Italy employed a new dive-bomber formation. Near Valletta Harbor, Malta, and later the same day about 30 miles to the southeast of Malta, Italian dive bombers engaged units of the British Fleet. Said the Italian communique: “Violent anti-aircraft reaction and bitter combat with enemy chasers could not prevent our formations of bombers in horizontal flight and Picchiatelli—new formations of dive bombers—from achieving with dash and daring the obvious results.”

Results, according to the British story: five Italian aircraft were shot down by Fulmar Gladiators and antiaircraft; and four others were chased almost to Sicily. The next day Britons, who refuse to take Italian warriors seriously, speculated about the dive bombers’ design (they are probably the planes approved only last February, first tested in March) and had a chuckle about the name. Picchiatelli, it appeared, was Italian for a word in the picture Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, which was extremely popular in Italy—pixilated. It was used to describe Signor Gary Cooper as slightly daffy.