Sicilian Culture: News: Italian Aviation Memoirs

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Italian Aviation Memoirs

[Richard Annotico's Note: With the renew interest in Italian Aviation Between the World Wars, spearheaded by the impending Celebration in Chicago in 2002, the following book and article should be of pertinent interest, although it occurred during WWI.]
I am forwarding some information about my father's book. I believe it would appeal to Italian readers in that it contains a first hand account of the excitement (and hazards) of flying in 1915 narrated by a young Italian man full of patriotism, idealism, and religious fervor.
Memoirs of Lt. Camillo Viglino: Italian Air Force 1915-1916 by Lt. Camillo Viglino
(trans. Camilla Hurwitz and Victor Viglino)
121 pages; perfect bound; catalogue #01-0335; ISBN 1-55212-933-0;
US$19.95, C$29.95
A firsthand account, accompanied by photographs, of the experiences of a World War I flight trainee during the earliest days of military aviation.
About the Book
In July of 1915, just two months after Italy joined the Allied Forces during World War I, Lieutenant Camillo Viglino, age 23, volunteered for flight training in the Italian Air Force. His account of the training provides the freshness and intimacy of an on-the-scene, firsthand report. It reveals an idealistic young man with an unbridled passion for flying and a patriotic zeal to fight for his country -- a young man daring to go up in the fragile flying machines of those early years of aviation, routinely placing himself at the mercy of the weather, cantankerous engines, and unreliable instruments. The discomforts of flying an open-cockpit 1914 Maurice Farman, the frequent crashes at the flight school, and the constant occurrences of pilots getting lost are all related with a nonchalant bravado befitting a 20-year-old. Viglino follows his diary-like accounts with a copy of a letter from a cousin at the front describing an air raid on Adelsberg, Austria.
This book was written in Italian and originally published in Italy in 1934. It was translated into English by his two children, Camilla Viglino Hurwitz and Victor Viglino.
About the Author
Camillo Viglino came from a very patriarchal, upper-class family that strongly opposed his decision to volunteer for flight training. Viglino's strong religious upbringing is evidenced by his allusion to divine intervention in the daily lives of the young student pilots contained in his memoirs. Unfortunately, his career as a military pilot was a very brief one, as the reader will discover on reading his memoirs. Viglino went on to obtain degrees in Law, Literature, and Philosophy, and became a professor at the Collegio Melleria Rosmini in Domodossola, where he had studied as a youth. He became a prolific writer, authoring numerous articles on religious subjects, personal experiences, and childrens' school texts. Finally he became the Editor of the Rivista Rosminiana, a Catholic newspaper published in Intra.
In 1930, he married Ida Ferraris. Their first child, Vittorio, was born in 1931. In 1934, Viglino appended his memoirs with a number of surprisingly intuitive reflections on the future of aviation, the automobile, space travel, and other inventions of the 20th century. They are included in the book and demonstrate his foresight, his idealism, and the tenor of the times.
Sadly, after having survived his daredevil exploits in aviation, Viglino succumbed to pneumonia and died in 1935 at the early age of 43. His wife was carrying their second child, Camilla, at the time.
Excerpts
"...I glanced at my uncle's altimeter and saw that it registered about 60 feet. If it was right, I knew that in just a few seconds I would smash into the ground."
"...Believe it or not, the cockpit, with the pilot still inside, detached from the plane and slid inside an open window that was just at the right height while the rest of the plane crumbled into the wall. The pilot and the cockpit ended up in the middle of a group of bewildered mechanics scared out of their wits."
"...The percentage of fatalities was enormous. In their Lombardian dialect, the local bourgeois pitifully referred to us as "neck meat", the term applied to animals in the slaughter house."
"...was lucky enough to bring the plane down safely suspended on a clump of tall trees. And there he remained the entire night cooped up like a chicken inside the cockpit - uncomfortable and hungry - without daring to move for fear that the plane might fall to the ground."
"...after much yelling and waving, the students flung themselves against the plane to try to stop it. Unfortunately, they were hit in the chest by the wings and thrown upwards with legs flying. The plane ended up wedged in between two others and all three were completely demolished."
"...we had our colleagues hold on to the plane and release it when we were ready to take off. The trouble with men holding onto the plane was that they didn't always release it at exactly the same time, causing the plane to yaw in one direction or the other at full speed."
"...don't think for a minute that we didn't have respect for our classmates killed in flight. When the field truck passed in front of the cemetery, we all saluted. And when we passed over the cemetery in flight, again we all saluted. We were saluting the friends that we could be joining at any moment. When we attended the funeral of our friends who died flying, the women would look at us all with eyes full of pity. But we were no more deserving of their pity than the infantrymen who died hungry, in dirty trenches filled with lice. I guess in contrast to them, we risked a cold death, often foreseen, all alone, without the excitement of the hand-to-hand combat to distract us from its approach."
I would be happy to send you a review copy of the book. I can be reached at Camilla Hurwitz at (972) 960-0941 or cthurwitz@hotmail.com

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