Mussolini and Balbo: dropping the Fascist pilot
Italio Balbo, Italian marshal.
Italo Balbo (1896-1940) was probably the best-known Fascist leader in Italy after Benito Mussolini, with a breathtaking career until his death at the age of 44. As a teenage boy, he was already a proto-fascist thug, looking for a fight whenever he had a chance to engage the Socialists.
Balbo participated in the First World War. He had some combat experience following the Italian defeat at Caporetto, leading to several medals for bravery and promotion to the rank of capitano.
Having become one of the first Blackshirts, Balbo impressed Mussolini and was one of the four “Quadrumvirs” who organised the Marcia su Roma (“March on Rome”) in 1922 that brought the Fascists to power. Balbo was just 25 at the time. He was also a founder member of the Grand Council of Fascism in 1923. He was reputed to have been involved in the murder of an anti-Fascist priest, but Mussolini managed to cover it up. After that Balbo kept strictly to the law, rising fast in the government hierarchy. Mussolini recognised Balbo’s worth and in rapid succession promoted him to be a general of the militia (1923), to undersecretary of state for air (1926), to air minister (1929), and finally to air marshal (1933).
Balbo taught himself to fly and soon became an expert on aviation. He did both the hard work of organising the military wing of the Regia Aeronautica, the Royal Italian Air Force, and of promoting his own brand of spectacular flying in formation. Balbo became famous for his promotion of mass international flights to demonstrate Italy’s air power. In 1933, he personally led an “Italian Air Armada” of 24 seaplanes to perform a round trip from Rome to Chicago, with eight legs including Orbetello, Amsterdam, Derry, Reykjavik, Cartwright, Shediac, Montreal, Lake Michigan, Chicago and New York City.
In Balbo’s honour, Mussolini donated a 2000-year-old Roman column from Ostia to the city of Chicago, which had a large Italian community. The inscription (in Italian) says:
This column
twenty centuries old
erected on the beach of Ostia
port of Imperial Rome
to watch over the fortunes and victories
of the Roman triremes
Fascist Italy, by command of Benito Mussolini,
presents it to Chicago as a memorial of the Atlantic Squad led
by Balbo
that with Roman daring flew across the ocean
in the 11th year
of the Fascist era.
Balbo’s Pillar is still there in Chicago today, enduring more than 90 years of attempts to remove it. After the end of the Second World War, the anti-fascist Italian ambassador to the United States requested that the tributes to Balbo be removed. Chicago’s Mayor replied: “Why? Didn’t Balbo cross the Atlantic?” One of the more recent motions to remove the monument in 2017, was abandoned due to an Italian-American civil group arguing that Balbo was anti-Nazi and citing his importance to the Italian-American and aviation communities.
Balbo Monument, Chicago
But back to 1933. In an abrupt change of fortune, that same year of the transatlantic flight Balbo was removed from the world’s limelight and sent to Libya to become its Governor-General. He stayed in the post until his untimely death in 1940. Some speculated at the time that the reason for this political exile was Mussolini’s jealousy. According to Time Magazine article in 1937, that might have been done because Mussolini feared competition. Balbo was becoming a media darling, with his impressive floating plane armadas crossing the Atlantic, applauded and loved by the crowd wherever he went. Be it Rio de Janeiro, New York or Montreal, he dined with presidents and celebrities, from the US President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Brazil’s President Vargas to the even more famous pilot Charles Lindbergh, who in 1927 had made the first nonstop solo transatlantic flight from New York to Paris. (Lindbergh later became notorious as a pro-Nazi “America First” isolationist.) Wherever he went, Balbo was showered with honours and awards.
When Mussolini decided to ally Italy with Nazi Germany in 1939, Balbo was among the few Fascists who opposed the alliance. He told those who were enthusiastic for the agreement “you will end up wiping the boots of the Germans”. He was also critical of Mussolini’s adoption, encouraged by Hitler, of anti-Semitism. Most Italian Jews were sent to Auschwitz, including Primo Levi — the author of the best Holocaust book ever written.
Balbo’s death in 1940 is difficult to understand. His plane was brought down by friendly fire. At the time the problem was to hit a plane, not to avoid hitting it. Inevitably rumours circulated that Mussolini wanted to get rid of him, although that hypothesis has been refuted in different studies. We have to give up the notion that every dictator is a Stalin.
British flyers expressed their sorrow at Balbo’s passing. Arthur Longmore, Air Marshal of the RAF, called Balbo a great leader and gallant aviator, whom fate had placed on the other side. Wing Commander P.G. “Laddie” Lucas also praised Balbo as a courageous leader and exceptional aviator, highlighting the mutual respect among top pilots on opposing sides during the early war years.
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