The history of Italian military parachuting, indeed, worldwide, began twenty years before the establishment of the first large airborne unit.
The Lieutenant Alessandro Tandura, audito of the 10th Arditi Regiment (current 9th Assault Regiment Col Moschin), during the night between 8 and 9 August 1918, with an English Cathrop parachute (usually used by pilots of aircraft in trouble), he will jump in the Vittorio Veneto area, from a Savoia-Pomilio SP.4 aircraft of the Special Aviation Group I and piloted by Major William George Barker, Canadian, and from Captain and Member of the House of Commons William Wedgwood Benn, British (both Royal Air Force pilots). A real intelligence action: an incursion behind the lines to observe (actually in the Italian territories occupied by the Austro-Hungarians) the enemy and report to the Italian Military Command the deployment of men and means.
Tandura may not know it, but it is in the story: HE IS THE FIRST PARATROOPER IN THE WORLD IN WAR ACTION IN HISTORY. A few days later, the second was also carried out, by Lieutenant Pier Arrigo Barnaba, also of the Arditi. Both came from the Alpini, and therefore retained the characteristic green insignia, the so-called “Fiamme Verdi”.
The forerunners of the national parachute units were the "Libyan Airborne Infantrymen"desired with far-sighted determination by Italo Balbo, Governor General of Libya. Overcoming difficulties of all kinds, Balbo succeeded in making 22 March 1938 a parachuting school at Castel Benito Airport, near Tripoli.
The idea was to create a battalion of Libyan 'Airborne Infantrymen' framed by Italian national officers and non-commissioned officers by entrusting its command to one of the most valiant and experienced colonial officers, the Lieutenant Colonel Gold Medal for Military Valour Goffredo Tonini.
You were working on virgin terrain, you had to constantly invent, training was very difficult and, on top of that, the innate distrust of black troops for aircraft was not an obstacle that could be easily overcome.
The Pilot Lieutenant Prospero Freri he went to Libya and trained in the use of the 'Salvator' D/37 parachute, which he had invented, the officers who were to become instructors of the natives in turn. Everything was done quickly and the Ascari, once familiar with the planes and the jumps, became excellent athletes.
Unfortunately, the first trials were carried out with rather unsuitable S/81 aircraft. There were 15 dead and 72 wounded.
By Provision Sheet No. 12 of 28 September 1939, the Regia Aeronautica was established at the 'Amerigo Sostegni' airport in Tarquinia (VT), as of 15 October 1939, the Royal Military Parachute Schoolwhose task was to train the future paratroopers of the Italian Armed Forces on national soil, drawing on the experience gained at the Libyan Parachute School Camp created at Castel Benito (LIBYA) in 1938. Within a few months, the increasingly intense activities within the Regia Scuola di Paracadutismo (Royal Parachute School) led to the creation of an instructor corps of around fifty officers and non-commissioned officers.
On 23 May 1940, the first battalion of national paratroopers was formed in Barce under the command of Major Arturo Calascibetta. The battalions of 'Libyan' and 'national' paratroopers, combined with other units, formed the "Tonini mobile group with the task of slowing down the initial advances of the British troops .
This time, however, more attention was paid to the more technical side. The suitably modified SM/75s were used, while the D/37 'Salvator' parachute was replaced by the I/40, which had a larger canopy and thus allowed a slightly slower descent speed. Training was in progress when the Second World War broke out.
The first units to be formed in Tarquinia (July 1940) were the 1st and 2nd Parachute Battalions and the 3rd Parachute Carabinier Battalion (later renamed II, III and I respectively). In the spring of 1941, the 4th Parachute Battalion was added, which, together with the 2nd and 3rd Battalions and the 1st Counter-Tank Gun Company, formed the 1st Parachute Regiment.
During 1941, the 2nd Regiment (V, VI and VII Battalions, 2nd Gun Company) and the 3rd Regiment (IX, X and XI Battalions, 3rd Gun Company) were also formed. The VIII Battalion was retrained at the Engineers' School. The regimental gun companies were then used as the basis for the creation of the I, II and III Parachute Artillery Groups, later grouped into the Parachute Artillery Regiment.
From these elements, on 1 September 1941 the 1st Parachute Division was formed under the command of Brigadier General Francesco Sapienza and then, from 1 March 1942, by Brigadier General Enrico Frattini, an engineer officer, previously attached to the head of SMRE, Army General Mario Roatta.
The man from Tarquinia was the Parachutist pilot Colonel Joseph Baudoin de Gillette, who became somewhat of a spiritual father to all Italian paratroopers.
At Tarquinia, which over the years was to become the symbol of the Italian Paratroopers, young men from every speciality of the Armed Forces flocked, so that the selection could be extremely rigorous: the 60% of volunteers were discarded, but those who remained were truly first-class young men. The difficulties, as usual, were enormous; in Tarquinia there was only an airfield, some barracks and nothing else.
However, Baudoin had a talented group of instructors around him. As if by magic, barracks and giant tents sprang up, while a metal training tower over 50 metres high was taken down from the Piazza d'Armi at Villa Glori in Rome and reassembled at the camp in Tarquinia.
The first units of Italian paratroopers, therefore, with the exception of the two battalions formed in Libya, were formed at the Tarquinia School. Within the framework of this school, in 1940, numerous volunteers from every type of Weapon, Corps and Speciality of the Royal Army formed the The Battalion (commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Benzi). In early 1941, the 3rd Battalion (Major Pignatelli of Cerchiara), followed shortly after by the 4th Battalion (Major Bechi Luserna).
In the same month, as the long and bloody Greek campaign came to an end, the paratroopers were called upon to conquer the island of Cephalonia. In charge of the operation was the 1st Battalion, which transferred two of its companies, under the command of Major Zanninovich, to Lecce. On 30 April, a number of SM-82s took off from Galatina airport: the launch took place in the Argostoli plain and the action succeeded without a single shot being fired. Having disarmed the local garrison, composed of a few hundred Greek gendarmes, the following day, troops of paratroopers, having requisitioned some fishing boats, landed on the islands of Zakynthos and Ithaca, preventing them from falling under German control.
On 5 May, the men of the 2nd Battalion were withdrawn and replaced. The first jump of the war, for our paratroopers, had ended in complete success. In the meantime, the training and establishment of new battalions continued, always identified by progressive numbering; between the summer of 1941 and the spring of 1942, seven battalions were formed, including one of paratroopers-paratroopers, while on 10 August 1941, an artillery group was formed: now the time was ripe to establish a Grand Unit.
This was officially formed on 1 September 1941, bringing together the 1st and 2nd Parachute Regiments (V, VI and VII btg.), the 8th Parachute Battalion and the Parachute Division Artillery Group, which was expanded to a two-group regiment in January 1942.
Of course, not all units were immediately available and operational, but they became so as the training phases progressed.
The following March, a 3rd parachute regiment (IX-X and XI btg.) was added, while by June, the artillery regiment received a third group. The Parachute Division, thus formed, differed from other units of this level in that it was organically lighter, had reduced services and was not burdened with heavy logistical structures. Even the artillery regiment was only equipped with 47/32 pieces, intended for anti-tank tasks (and even these with clear limitations) but unsuitable for providing normal fire support. Mortars and accompanying weapons were few and far between, with the only advantage being that individual armament included the Beretta submachine gun.
On the other hand, this weaponry was well suited to the type of action that the unit was called upon, at least institutionally, to perform: the airdrop with surprise action on a target and the subsequent establishment of a bridgehead to be defended for a limited period of time, until it was taken over by conventional forces.
Fine theories, those set out, which the future 'Folgore' were, however, denied by the events of the war. The Parachute Division, this was the official name of the new Grand Unit, was placed in command of the General Francesco Sapienza, almost immediately replaced by General Enrico Frattini. Initial training was carried out until May 1942 in Tuscany and Lazio, then there was the transfer to Puglia between Ceglie Messapica, Ostuni and Villa Castelli, where she underwent hard training in view of the planned invasion of Malta (Operation C3).
Instead, the overconfidence placed in Rommel's successes and the fall of Tobruck gave priority to the operations to be conducted towards Egypt and therefore the crucial action on Malta, for which the paratroopers had worked so hard, was abandoned, thus denying the Division the right to be deployed in its entirety in a war drop.
Exultation, when in the July 1942 its deployment in North Africa was decided, it was short-lived, as the paratroopers soon realised that they were unlikely to be deployed in airdrops, but as the lancet equipment was maintained, some faint hope remained.
In July 1942 the division was instead transferred to North Africa under the cover name of 185th Division "Africa Hunters", so as not to reveal to the enemy the real affiliation of the paratroopers, under the command of General Enrico Frattini. At the same time the battalions became from two to three per Regiment, regiments that also changed their denomination: before the departure of the three infantry Regiments, only the 186th and 187th left, while the 185th regiment, and remained in Italy to form the nucleus of the 184th Paratrooper Division "Nembo". The Artillery Regiment assumed the number 185th.
At the same time, the Division also underwent an organic reorganisation, becoming, on 28 July, 185th Parachute Division and assumed the name 'Folgore'., derived from the Latin motto 'Ex Alto Fulgor' minted for his 1st regiment and chosen by the then Major Alberto Bechi Luserna at the involuntary suggestion of Don Augusto Moglioni, who in one of his letters concluded by signing his name with this formula of greeting.
The rearrangement also involved its regiments, which took on the new numbering of the 185th, 186th and 187th, while the artillery regiment and the speciality wings were always marked with the number 185.
The news was not over yet, however, as it was decided to form a new Parachute Division, the 185th Regiment was retained in Italy, as the constituent nucleus of the new unit, framing the 3rd Battalion and handing over the other two (4th and 5th) to the 187th Regiment.
From this moment on, therefore, the 'Folgore' assumed the binary structure and began its transfer to North Africa in a piecemeal fashion, partly by air from the airfields in Lecce, partly after a long and tortuous journey through the Balkans, from Athens, again by air.
The first unit to arrive on African soil was the IV/187th of the Lieutenant Colonel Bechi Luserna who came to Fuka on 18 July, immediately followed by the other divisional divisions. Concentrated at El Daba, the paratroopers, for reasons of secrecy, had to give up wearing their patents and anything else that might denote their specialisation. It was a great sacrifice, exacerbated by the fact that the Division, for the same reasons, also had to adopt the name "African Hunters" and that the order came, peremptorily, to hand over all the dropping equipment, which had to be sent back to Derna for storage: the last hope of being able to carry out a war drop was thus dashed.
The 'Folgore' is then sent to trench warfare in the hell of El Qattara at El Alamein where it emerges undefeated but decimated and was disbanded, as a division, at the end of 1942.
From the school in Tarquinia, which was transferred to Viterbo in January '43, came the paratroopers of the 'Folgore' and 'Nembo' Divisions, those of the Carabinieri battalion, the San Marco battalion, the Navy, the X Arditi and battalions 1 and ADRA (Arditi Distruttori Regia Aereonautica).
The 'Nembo' Division, having overcome the crisis following the armistice on 8 September 1943, played a leading role in the War of Liberation.
With some survivors and replacements in Libya, the CLXXXV Paratrooper Battalion “Folgore”, commanded by the Captain Lombardini, divided into five companies and included in the 66th Infantry Regiment of the “Trieste” Division of the XX Army Corps, taking part in the Tunisian campaign.
The 285th deployed at Buerat in defence of the Via Balbia and after further retreats, the battalion received the order, 22 January 1943, to deploy south of the airport of Castelbenito. It held out to the bitter end along with a battalion of German paratroopers to allow the Italian and German divisions to fall back along the coastline. The next day, 23 January, he was ordered to evacuate the capital Tripoli and join with the new divisions that had arrived in North Africa for the extreme defence in Tunisia.
He fought a series of fierce battles at Medenine, Gabès on the Akarit and in defence of the Mareth line in Tunisia between 6 and 7 April 1943, and on that occasion too he gave an excellent performance, culminating in the epic Battle of Takrouna on April 20, 1943, where the cry of “FOLGORE!!!” once again echoes.
After days of very heavy fighting against an entire New Zealand brigade (about 4,000 men against 180) sacrifices himself almost completely in order not to leave the positions. The British will once again grant the approximately 50 survivorshonour of arms as already happened to El Alamein.
It will be the last fight of the HEROIC ITALIAN PARATROOPERS IN AFRICA.
Slow and beset by countless difficulties was the reconstruction of the Parachute Specialty in the post-war period.
The clauses of the Peace Treaty were drastically restrictive with regard to the Italian Armed Forces and took no account of the fact that these, from the October 1943 to April 1945, had operated alongside the Allies.
Among other dictates, there was a ban on the establishment and training of parachutist units, precisely in light of the importance that the nascent speciality had shown during the world conflict.
In 1946, a Experience Centre for Military Parachuting, trained in Rome thanks to Captain Leonida Turrini, together with other officers and NCOs already belonging to the 'Nembo' regiment, who were able to proceed with the training, using old launching equipment and aircraft SM-82 escaped demolition, thanks to the transfer to the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, under whose insignia they flew. Thus it was possible for former military personnel and also a number of civilians to resume their launch training cycles.
In January 1947, they gathered at the Centro Militare di Paracadutismo (C.M.P.) in Rome, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Giuseppe Izzo.
The following year, thanks to the establishment of an experimental unit at company level, which also included conscripts, the Centre left its Roman headquarters and moved to 13 March in Viterbo, where the Military Parachute School had already existed during the war, joined in 1942 by the one in Tarquinia.
At the same time, as the international situation changed and the period of the "cold war"between the Western powers and the countries of the Soviet bloc, the heavy limitations imposed by the Peace Treaty were eased, while Italy's entry into the NATO, sanction its definitive downfall.
The Centre's activities could then continue unabated: the parachute companies became two e in 1952 they formed the Parachute Battalion, the first unit of this level to be established in the post-war period.
A department was subsequently set up paratroopers, a saboteur unit and five Alpine parachute platoons assigned to as many Brigades. At the same time, launching equipment was improved with the adoption of the parachute C.M.P. 53 (which finally included an auxiliary parachute) and the subsequent C.M.P. 55 (envisaged by onehsot) while in the airfield the old SM-82s gave way to the more modern Fairchild C-119G FLYING BOXCAR (or 'flying wagons' in the widespread Italian diction) given by the United States on MDAP (Mutual Defence Assistance Program) accountThe CMP 55 will be the last parachute designed and built entirely in Italy.
As of 1957 the contingent of conscripts to receive the parachutist licence was enlarged and at the same time the operational battalion was enlarged in terms of personnel, becoming the 1st Parachute Tactical Group under the orders of Lieutenant Colonel Adolfo Giunta. Following this expansion, the decision was taken to leave the old Viterbo headquarters and to transfer all air force units to the new sites in Pisa and Livorno.
In Pisa they moved the Military Skydiving Centre under the command of Colonel Carlo Mautino, the Carabinieri and Saboteur units, the Recruit Training Department, the Studies and Experience Office and the Airborne Company, while Livorno was home to the 1st Parachute Tactical Group and the 1st Parachute Artillery Battery. At the same time, all personnel in these units were given permission to carry, instead of the 'khaki' beret previously in use, the 'grey-green' beret (formerly of the Nembo) as a symbolic recognition of the Speciality that was preparing for important new developments.
The 1 January 1963, following a further expansion of the departments, the Parachute Brigade, by decision of his chief of staff at the time, the General Giuseppe Aloia. The first commander of the reconstituted Paratroopers Brigade, which was placed under the command of the Army General Staff, was General Aldo Magri.
The 1 January 1963 therefore, the Parachute Brigade was formed in Pisa with the following structure:
In the same, 1963, she was placed in the VI Army Corps of Bologna into which the Friuli and Trieste infantry brigades were framed.
The following year (1964) the Brigade Command moved to Livorno, joining all the other operational units, while in Pisa the CEPAR changed its name to Military Parachute School (SMIPAR). In the following years, the 'Folgore' found itself on the front line in civil emergencies, such as floods (1966) and earthquakes, and on those occasions when the use of force was unavoidable.
Finally the 10 June 1967 the Parachute Brigade was authorised to bear the glorious name 'Folgore'. while his staff, a few days later, was assigned the amaranth beret, following a tradition common to almost every country in the world, whereby elite troops wear berets with immediately identifiable colours.
The international political scenario, with the world divided into 2 parts, the United States on the one hand, theSoviet Union on the other hand, it places Italy in a position of vital importance from a strategic military point of view: training activity continued intensely, bringing the Brigade's Paratroopers to the highest international levels, thanks also to numerous exercises, often in the context NATO, which made its preparation official. The Folgore is NATO's first spearhead against which to clash in the event of a war scenario.
At the same time, the modernisation of vehicles and equipment continued, especially aircraft, with the gradual replacement of the old C-119s by the more modern and capable C-130 HERCULES and G-222s of Italian design, as well as the adoption of helicopters of various types.
The 1971 However, it was saddened by a great tragedy: thedawn of 9 November a Royal Air Force C-130K, flown together with other aircraft of the same type to Pisa for a cycle of exercises, sank after take-off in the area of the shoals of Meloria with 46 paratroopers of the Brigade on board left to carry out an airdrop in Sardinia. Sgt. Maj. Giannino Caria also lost his life in the difficult recovery operations. of the saboteurs' btg, decorated in his memory with the Gold Medal for Civil Valour and after whom the flagship of the Brigade's small fleet of boats is now named.
The restructuring of the Italian Army, which took place in 1975, which was aimed at prioritising the qualitative component over the quantitative one, profoundly affected the structure of the Brigade, with the disbanding of the 1st regiment, the assignment of a name to individual battalions or groups and the establishment of new support units. According to this restructuring, the 2nd and 5th parachute battalions took on the names Tarquinia and El Alamein, the Carabinieri battalion took on the name Tuscania, the saboteur battalion became the 9th Col Moschin and the artillery group was renamed the 185th Viterbo, while the aviation department became the 26th A.L.E. Jupiter Squadron.
In theOctober 1976 war flags were handed over to the battalions of the Brigade:
A logistics battalion and the scout, counter-tank and pioneer engineer companies were also formed, all identified by the name 'Folgore'. At the same time, the recruit battalion of the Military Parachute School of Pisa assumed the numbering of 3rd and the name of Poggio Rusco.
Subsequent organic reorganisations, within the Brigade, led to the dissolution of the scouting and anti-tank companies, whose personnel, with an evolutionary logic aimed at making the basic units increasingly efficient and autonomous, were divided between the 2nd and 5th battalions. Finally, logistic requirements, which became necessary to reduce the number of existing units at the Livorno headquarters, led to the dislocation of the 5th Battalion and the Pioneer Engineer Company, now the Engineer Guards Company, at the new headquarters in Siena and Lucca, respectively.
In 1982 is used, for the first time, almost completely (all departments) in the very delicate Italcon mission in Lebanon, one of the very first international peacekeeping missions. It will again provide a tactical group in the 1991 in the framework of the humanitarian relief mission “ITALPAR Airone”, later renamed “ITALFOR Airone”, in Iraqi Kurdistan.
In the year 1992 the 183rd btg. Nembo based in the city of Pistoia, thus rationalising the territorial settlement of the Brigade. The following year the 183rd Battalion, became 183rd Regiment made up of the Rifle Battalion and the CCS Company. And so on to all the others, the 2nd, based at the Vannucci barracks in Livorno became the 187th Parachute Regiment Folgore, and the 5th Battalion 186th Parachute Regiment Folgore.
The Battalions remained, they were integrated into the Regiments, so that each Regiment consisted of a Battalion made up of four rifle companies and a heavy mortar company, and a command and services company outside the battalion that depended directly on the Regimental Headquarters.
The 185th Parachute Artillery Regiment, based in Livorno at the Pisacane barracks.
The Regiment had a similar structure to Regiments 183, 186, 187, but the operational Companies were called 'Batteries' and were framed within a Battalion. In the following years, the Battalions had a few changes in terms of Rifle Companies (from four to three), but the structure remained basically intact.
From July 1992 The brigade provides personnel to theOperation Sicilian Vespers for territorial control and the defence of sensitive targets. From December 1992 was employed in Somalia until September 1993, in the ITALFOR Ibis mission, within the Restore Hope operation where he is the protagonist, the 2 July 1993, of Italy's first post-war military conflict.
In 1997 the absurd story of the Somalia-gate, an investigation artfully mounted by the weekly Panorama to discredit Folgore, later shelved for being completely unfounded (it was discovered that a soldier had invented stories for Panorama for personal financial gain).
In the same year the brigade passed under the command of the Operational Projection Forces Command, established that year as part of the measures connected with the implementation of the New Defence Model. In 1998 was dissolved the 3rd Parachute Battalion Poggio Rusco, which had not assumed the regimental structure and the following year the Military Parachute School became the Parachute Training Centre.
In the following years there were significant changes within the Brigade:
However in 1997, speculation by a well-known political current, risked the disappearance of the Baschi Amaranto forever, the Brigata Folgore actually risked being disbanded. Artfully mounted 'Somalgate' by the weekly 'panorama' magazine, in theApril 2001 Italian Justice ruling: the photos that appeared in the magazine had been manipulated, in short, photomontages. And the accusatory stories of Italian pseudo-paratroopers, stories artfully inflated by mythomaniacs in search of notoriety, probably financed by 'someone' who never liked the Parachute Brigade.
But the Folgore 'held its own', closed in on itself as Great Families do, resisted as is its style, and waited for the moment of great redemption.
In Afghanistan April to October 2009, the Folgore deploys the Command and Task Forces of the Regional Command West and the Italian contingent in Kabul. During the mission, the paratroopers are engaged in operations against Taliban guerrillas and are involved in several firefights and attacks with IEDs buried in the ground or car bombs.
The Folgore paratroopers were the first Italians to be filmed in combat in Afghanistan (6 October 2009), thanks to journalist Rai Nico Piro.
The video of the Battle of Parmakan It was republished by several news sites, newspapers and relaunched by the ANSA and APCOM news agencies.
In the years following the ISAF operation, the Brigade underwent a major reorganization.
In 2013, as part of the subsequent reorganisation, the Brigade passes under the direct control of COMFOTER and sees its composition change again. Entering the large unit are the 3rd Savoy Cavalry Regiment, the 6th Folgore Logistics Regiment and the newly reconstituted 185th Parachute Artillery Regiment.
Leaving the Folgore instead are 9th Parachute Assault Regiment Col Moschin and the 185th Parachute Regiment reconnaissance target acquisition Folgore, which became part of the Army Special Forces Command, reporting directly to the Deputy Chief of Staff.
From September 2016 the Brigade leaves the Ground Operations Force Command and passes to the Operational Forces Command North.
The Folgore remains today a highly trained Large Unit with means and equipment unique in the entire sphere of the armed forces, and its paratroopers at the top of the armed forces and beyond.
The very heavy legacy with the glorious past and the very high operational expertise of the Brigade represent the strength of all the Paratroopers of today and tomorrow for the defense of the Nation.
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5°Btg EL ALAMEIN Siena
Parachute Sergeant on Leave