Sixteen-year-old Alfonso XIII is crowned king of Spain. The young king relishes his power and routinely intervenes in parliamentary affairs. The result is extreme political instability, and 33 governments are formed in Spain between 1902 and 1923.
U.S. Army paratroopers assigned to the Company B, 2nd Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment, 173rd Airborne Brigade, observe a U.S. Air Force F-16 Falcon during close air support training at Pocek Range in Postojna, Slovenia, March 12, 2015.
In military tactics, close air support (CAS) is defined as air action such as air strikes by fixed or rotary-winged aircraft against hostile targets that are in proximity to friendly forces and which requires detailed integration of each air mission with fire and movement of these forces and attacks with aerial bombs, glide bombs, missiles, rockets, aircraft cannons, machine guns, and even directed-energy weapons such as lasers.[1]
The requirement for detailed integration because of proximity, fires or movement is the determining factor. CAS may need to be conducted during shaping operations with Special Operations Forces (SOF) if the mission requires detailed integration with the fire and movement of these forces. A closely related subset of air interdiction (AI), battlefield air interdiction, denotes interdiction against units with near-term effects on friendly units, but which does not require integration with friendly troop movements. The term 'battlefield air interdiction' is not currently used in U.S. joint doctrine.
Close air support requires excellent coordination with ground forces. In advanced modern militaries, this coordination is typically handled by specialists such as Joint Fires Observers (JFOs), Joint Terminal Attack Controllers (JTACs), and forward air controllers (FACs).
History[edit]World War I[edit]
The use of aircraft in the close air support of ground forces dates back to World War I, the first significant use of aerial units in warfare.[2] Air warfare, and indeed aviation itself, was still in its infancyâand the direct effect of rifle calibre machine guns and light bombs of World War I aircraft was very limited compared with the power of (for instance) a World War II fighter bomber, but close support aircraft still had a powerful psychological impact. The aircraft was a visible and personal enemyâunlike artilleryâpresenting a personal threat to enemy troops, while providing friendly forces assurance that their superiors were concerned about their situation.[citation needed]
Most successful attacks of 1917â1918 included planning for co-ordination between aerial and ground units, although it was very hard at this early date to co-ordinate these attacks due to the primitive nature of air-to-ground radio communication. Though most air-power proponents sought independence from ground commanders and hence pushed the importance of interdiction and strategic bombing, they nonetheless recognised the need for close air support.[3][page needed]
The F.E 2d was one of the first aircraft to be used for close air support in 1917 (the observer is demonstrating the use of the rear-firing Lewis gun).
From the commencement of hostilities in 1914, aviators engaged in sporadic and spontaneous attacks on ground forces, but it wasn't until 1916 that an air support doctrine was elaborated and dedicated fighters for the job were put into service. By that point, the startling and demoralizing effect that attack from the air could have on the troops in the trenches had been made clear.
At the Battle of the Somme, 18 British armed reconnaissance planes strafed the enemy trenches after conducting surveillance operations. The success of this improvised assault spurred innovation on both sides. In 1917, following the Second Battle of the Aisne the British debuted the first ground-attack aircraft, a modified F.E 2b fighter carrying 20-lb bombs and mounted machine-guns. After exhausting their ammunition the planes returned to base for refuelling and rearming and returned to the battlezone. Other modified planes used in this role were the Airco DH.5 and Sopwith Camelâthe latter was particularly successful in this role.[2]
Aircraft support was first integrated into a battle plan on a large scale at the 1917 Battle of Cambrai, where a significantly larger number of tanks were deployed than previously. By that time, effective anti-aircraft tactics were being used by the enemy infantry and pilot casualties were high, although air support was later judged as having been of a critical importance in places where the infantry had got pinned down.[4]
British doctrine at the time came to recognise two forms of air support; trench strafing (the modern-day doctrine of CAS), and ground strafing (the modern-day doctrine of air interdiction)âattacking tactical ground targets away from the land battle. As well as strafing with machine-guns, the planes were modified with bomb racks; the plane would fly in very low to the ground and release the bombs just above the trenches.
The Junkers J.I, a First World War German ground-attack aircraft
The Germans were also quick to adopt this new form of warfare and were able to deploy aircraft in a similar capacity at Cambrai. While the British used single-seater planes, the Germans preferred the use of heavier two-seaters with an additional machine gunner in the aft cockpit. The Germans adopted the powerful Hannover CL.II and built the first purpose built ground attack aircraft, the Junkers J.I. During the 1918 Spring Offensive the Germans employed 30 squadrons, or Schlasta, of ground attack fighters and were able to achieve some initial tactical success.[3][page needed] The British later deployed the Sopwith Salamander as a specialised ground attack aircraft, although it was too late to see much action.
It was during the Sinai and Palestine Campaign of 1918 that close air support was first proven to be an important factor in ultimate victory. After the British achieved air superiority over the German aircraft sent to aid the Ottoman Turks, squadrons of S.E 5a's and D.H. 4s were sent on wide-ranging attacks against German and Turkish positions near the Jordan river. Combined with a ground assault led by General Edmund Allenby, three Turkish armies soon collapsed into a full rout. In the words of the attacking squadron's official report:
Inter-war period[edit]
The British used air power extensively during the interwar period to police areas in the Middle East.
The close air support doctrine was further developed in the interwar period. Most theorists advocated the adaptation of fighters or light bombers into the role. During this period, airpower advocates crystallized their views on the role of air-power in warfare. Aviators and ground officers developed largely opposing views on the importance of CAS, views that would frame institutional battles for CAS in the 20th century.[citation needed]
The inter-war period saw the use of CAS in a number of conflicts, including the Russo-Polish War, the Spanish Civil War, colonial wars in the Middle East and the Gran Chaco War.[2]
The British used air power to great effect in various colonial hotspots in the Middle East and North Africa during the immediate postwar period. The newly formed RAF contributed to the defeat of Afghan forces during the Third Anglo-Afghan War by harassing the enemy and breaking up their formations. Z force, an air squadron, was also used to support ground operations during the Somaliland campaign, in which the 'Mad Mullah' Mohammed Abdullah Hassan's insurgency was defeated. Following from these successes, the decision was made to create a unified RAF Iraq Command to use air power as a more cost-effective way of controlling large areas than the use of conventional land forces.[5] It was effectively used to suppress the Great Iraqi Revolution of 1920 and various other tribal revolts.
The Condor Legion reduced the city of Guernica to rubble, and greatly influenced German military strategists.
During the Spanish Civil War German volunteer aviators of the Condor Legion on the Nationalist side, despite little official support from their government, developed close air support tactics that proved highly influential for subsequent Luftwaffe doctrine.
U.S. Marine Corps Aviation was used as an intervention force in support of U.S. Marine Corps ground forces during the Banana Wars, in places such as Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Nicaragua. Marine Aviators experimented with air-ground tactics and in Haiti and Nicaragua they adopted the tactic of dive bombing.[6]
The observers and participants of these wars would base their CAS strategies on their experience of the conflict. Aviators, who wanted institutional independence from the Army, pushed for a view of air-power centered around interdiction, which would relieve them of the necessity of integrating with ground forces and allow them to operate as an independent military arm. They saw close air support as both the most difficult and most inefficient use of aerial assets.
Close air support was the most difficult mission, requiring identifying and distinguishing between friendly and hostile units. At the same time, targets engaged in combat are dispersed and concealed, reducing the effectiveness of air attacks. They also argued that the CAS mission merely duplicated the abilities of artillery, whereas interdiction provided a unique capability.
Ground officers contended there was rarely sufficient artillery available, and the flexibility of aircraft would be ideal for massing firepower at critical points, while producing a greater psychological effect on friendly and hostile forces alike. Moreover, unlike massive, indiscriminate artillery strikes, small aerial bombs wouldn't render ground untrafficable, slowing attacking friendly forces.[3][page needed]
Although the prevailing view in official circles was largely indifferent to CAS during the interwar period, its importance was expounded upon by military theorists, such as J. F. C. Fuller and Basil Liddell Hart. Hart, who was an advocate of what later came to be known as 'Blitzkrieg' tactics, thought that the speed of armoured tanks would render conventional artillery incapable of providing support fire. Instead he proposed that:
World War II[edit]
World War II marked the universal acceptance of the integration of air power into combined arms warfare as close air support. Although the German Luftwaffe was the only force to use CAS at the start of the war, all the major combatants had developed effective air-ground coordination techniques by the war's end.
Luftwaffe[edit]
A flight of Ju 87 D-5s over the Eastern Front, winter 1943â44.
As a continental power intent on offensive operations, Germany could not ignore the need for aerial support of ground operations. Though the Luftwaffe, like its counterparts, tended to focus on strategic bombing, it was unique in its willingness to commit forces to CAS. Unlike the Allies, the Germans were not able to develop powerful strategic bombing capabilities, which implied industrial developments they were forbidden to take according to the Treaty of Versailles.[8] In joint exercises with Sweden in 1934, the Germans were first exposed to dive-bombing, which permitted greater accuracy while making attack aircraft more difficult to track by antiaircraft gunners. As a result, Ernst Udet, chief of the Luftwaffe's development, initiated procurement of close support dive bombers on the model of the U.S. Navy's Curtiss Helldiver, resulting in the Henschel Hs 123, which was later replaced by the famous Junkers Ju 87Stuka. Experience in the Spanish Civil War lead to the creation of five ground-attack groups in 1938,[dubious] four of which would be equipped with Stukas. The Luftwaffe matched its material acquisitions with advances in the air-ground coordination. General Wolfram von Richthofen organized a limited number of air liaison detachments that were attached to ground units of the main effort. These detachments existed to pass requests from the ground to the air, and receive reconnaissance reports, but they were not trained to guide aircraft onto targets.
These preparations did not prove fruitful in the invasion of Poland, where the Luftwaffe focused on interdiction and dedicated few assets to close air support. But the value of CAS was demonstrated at the crossing of the Meuse River during the Invasion of France in 1940. General Heinz Guderian, one of the creators of the combined-arms tactical doctrine commonly known as 'blitzkrieg', believed the best way to provide cover for the crossing would be a continuous stream of ground attack aircraft on French defenders. Though few guns were hit, the attacks kept the French under cover and prevented them from manning their guns. Aided by the sirens attached to Stukas, the psychological impact was disproportional to the destructive power of close air support (although as often as not, the Stukas were used as tactical bombers instead of close air support, leaving much of the actual work to the older Hs 123 units for the first years of the war). In addition, the reliance on air support over artillery reduced the demand for logistical support through the Ardennes. Though there were difficulties in coordinating air support with the rapid advance, the Germans demonstrated consistently superior CAS tactics to those of the British and French defenders. Later, on the Eastern front, the Germans would devise visual ground signals to mark friendly units and to indicate direction and distance to enemy emplacements.
Despite these accomplishments, German CAS was not perfect and suffered from the same misunderstanding and interservice rivalry that plagued other nations' air arms, and friendly fire was not uncommon. For example, on the eve of the Meuse offensive, Guderian's superior cancelled his CAS plans and called for high-altitude strikes from medium bombers, which would have required halting the offensive until the air strikes were complete. Fortunately for the Germans, his order was issued too late to be implemented, and the Luftwaffe commander followed the schedule he had previously worked out with Guderian.[citation needed] As late as November 1941, the Luftwaffe refused to provide Erwin Rommel with an air liaison officer for the Afrika Korps, because it 'would be against the best use of the air force as a whole.'[3][page needed]
German CAS was also extensively used on the Eastern Front during the period 1941â1943. Their decline was caused by the growing strength of the Red Air Force and the redeployment of assets to defend against American and British strategic bombardment. Luftwaffe's loss of air superiority, combined with a declining supply of aircraft and fuel, crippled their ability to provide effective CAS on the western front after 1943.[citation needed]
RAF and USAAF[edit]
US Navy SBD Dauntless dropping its bomb.
The Royal Air Force (RAF) entered the war woefully unprepared to provide CAS. In 1940 during the Battle of France, the Royal Air Force and Army headquarters in France were located at separate positions, resulting in unreliable communications. After the RAF was withdrawn in May, Army officers had to telephone the War Office in London to arrange for air support. The stunning effectiveness of German air-ground coordination spurred change. On the basis of tests in Northern Ireland in August 1940, Group Captain A. H. Wann RAF and Colonel J.D. Woodall (British Army) issued the Wann-Woodall Report, recommending the creation of a distinct tactical air force liaison officer (known colloquially as 'tentacles') to accompany Army divisions and brigades. Their report spurred the RAF to create an RAF Army Cooperation Command and to develop tentacle equipment and procedures placing an Air Liaison Officer with each brigade.
Although the RAF was working on its CAS doctrine in London, officers in North Africa improvised their own coordination techniques. In October 1941, Sir Arthur Tedder and Arthur Coningham, senior RAF commanders in North Africa, created joint RAF-Army Air Support Control staffs at each corps and armored division headquarters, and placed a Forward Air Support Link at each brigade to forward air support requests. When trained tentacle teams arrived in 1942, they cut response time on support requests to thirty minutes.[3][page needed] It was also in the North Africa desert that the cab rank strategy was developed.[9] It used a series of three aircraft, each in turn directed by the pertinent ground control by radio. One aircraft would be attacking, another in flight to the battle area, while a third was being refuelled and rearmed at its base. If the first attack failed to destroy the tactical target, the aircraft in flight would be directed to continue the attack. The first aircraft would land for its own refuelling and rearming once the third had taken off.[citation needed] The CAS tactics developed and refined by the British during the campaign in North Africa served as the basis for the Allied system used to subsequently gain victory in the air over Germany in 1944 and devastate its cities and industries.[4]
British Mobile Fighter Controllers operating during World War II
The use of forward air control to guide close air support (CAS)[10] aircraft, so as to ensure that their attack hits the intended target and not friendly troops, was first used by the British Desert Air Force in North Africa, but not by the USAAF until operations in Salerno.[11] During the North African Campaign in 1941 the British Army and the Royal Air Force established Forward Air Support Links (FASL), a mobile air support system using ground vehicles. Light reconnaissance aircraft would observe enemy activity and report it by radio to the FASL which was attached at brigade level. The FASL was in communication (a two-way radio link known as a 'tentacle') with the Air Support Control (ASC) Headquarters attached to the corps or armoured division which could summon support through a Rear Air Support Link with the airfields.[12][13] They also introduced the system of ground direction of air strikes by what was originally termed a 'Mobile Fighter Controller' traveling with the forward troops. The controller rode in the 'leading tank or armoured car' and directed a 'cab rank' of aircraft above the battlefield.[14] This system of close co-operation first used by the Desert Air Force, was steadily refined and perfected, during the campaigns in Italy, Normandy and Germany.
By the time the Italian Campaign had reached Rome, the Allies had established air superiority. They were then able to pre-schedule strikes by fighter-bomber squadrons; however, by the time the aircraft arrived in the strike area, oftimes the targets, which were usually trucks, had fled.[15] The initial solution to fleeting targets was the British 'Rover' system. These were pairings of air controllers and army liaison officers at the front but able to switch communications seamlessly from one brigade to another â hence Rover. Incoming strike aircraft arrived with pre-briefed targets, which they would strike 20 minutes after arriving on station only if the Rovers had not directed them to another more pressing target. Rovers might call on artillery to mark targets with smoke shells, or they might direct the fighters to map grid coordinates, or they might resort to a description of prominent terrain features as guidance. However, one drawback for the Rovers was the constant rotation of pilots, who were there for fortnightly stints, leading to a lack of institutional memory. US commanders, impressed by the British tactics at the Salerno landings, adapted their own doctrine to include many features of the British system.[16]
At the start of the War, the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) had, as its principal mission, the doctrine of strategic bombing. This incorporated the unerring belief that unescorted bombers could win the war without the advent of ground troops. This doctrine proved to be fundamentally flawed. However, during the entire course of the war the USAAF top brass clung to this doctrine, and hence operated independently of the rest of the Army. Thus it was initially unprepared to provide CAS, and in fact, had to be dragged 'kicking and screaming' into the CAS function with the ground troops. USAAF doctrinal priorities for tactical aviation were, in order, air superiority, isolation of the battlefield via supply interdiction, and thirdly, close air support. Hence during the North African Campaign CAS was poorly executed, if at all. So few aerial assets were assigned to U.S. troops that they fired on anything in the air. And in 1943, the USAAF changed their radios to a frequency incompatible with ground radios.
The situation improved during the Italian Campaign, where American and British forces, working in close cooperation, exchanged CAS techniques and ideas. There, the AAF's XII Air Support Command and the Fifth U.S. Army shared headquarters, meeting every evening to plan strikes and devising a network of liaisons and radios for communications. However, friendly fire continued to be a concern â pilots did not know recognition signals and regularly bombed friendly units, until an A-36 was shot down in self-defense by Allied tanks. The expectation of losses to friendly fire from the ground during the planned invasion of France prompted the black and white invasion stripes painted on all Allied aircraft from 1944.
A-36A of the 86th Fighter Bomber Group (Dive) in Italy in 1944.
In 1944, USAAF commander Lt. Gen. Henry ('Hap') Arnold acquired 2 groups of A-24 dive bombers, the army version of the Navy's SBD-2, in response to the success of the Stuka and German CAS. Later, the USAAF developed a modification of the North American P-51 Mustang with dive brakes â the North American A-36 Apache. However, there was no training to match the purchases. Though Gen. Lesley McNair, commander of Army Ground Forces, pushed to change USAAF priorities, the latter failed to provide aircraft for even major training exercises. Six months before the invasion of Normandy, 33 divisions had received no joint air-ground training.
The USAAF saw the greatest innovations in 1944 under Gen. Elwood Quesada, commander of IX Tactical Air Command, supporting the First U.S. Army. He developed the 'armored column cover', where on-call fighter-bombers maintained a high-level of availability for important tank advances, allowing armor units to maintain a high tempo of exploitation even when they outran their artillery assets. He also used a modified antiaircraft radar to track friendly attack aircraft to redirect them as necessary, and experimented with assigning fighter pilots to tours as forward air controllers to familiarize them with the ground perspective. In July 1944, Quesada provided VHF aircraft radios to tank crews in Normandy. When the armored units broke out of the Normandy beachhead, tank commanders were able to communicate directly with overhead fighter-bombers. However, despite the innovation, Quesada focused his aircraft on CAS only for major offensives. Typically, both British and American attack aircraft were tasked primarily to interdiction, even though later analysis showed them to be twice as dangerous as CAS.
XIX TAC, under the command of General Otto P. Weyland utilized similar tactics to support the rapid armored advance of General Patton's Third Army in its drive across France. Armed reconnaissance was a major feature of XIX TAC close air support, as the rapid advance left Patton's Southern flank open. Such was the close nature of cooperation between the Third Army and XIX TAC that Patton actually counted on XIX TAC to guard his flanks. This close air support from XIX TAC was thus undoubtedly a key factor in the rapid advance and success of Patton's Third Army.
The American Navy and Marine Corps used CAS in conjunction with or as a substitute for the lack of available artillery or naval gunfire in the Pacific theater. Navy and Marine F6F Hellcats and F4U Corsairs used a variety of ordnance such as conventional bombs, rockets and napalm to dislodge or attack Japanese troops utilizing cave complexes in the latter part of World War II.
Red Air Force[edit]
A Soviet Air ForceIl-2M Sturmovik
The Soviet Union's Red Air Force quickly recognized the value of ground-support aircraft. As early as the Battles of Khalkhyn Gol in 1939, Soviet aircraft had the task of disrupting enemy ground-operations. This use increased markedly after the June 1941 Axis invasion of the Soviet Union.[17] Purpose-built aircraft such as the Ilyushin Il-2Sturmovik proved highly effective in blunting the activity of the Panzers. Joseph Stalin paid the Il-2 a great tribute in his own inimitable manner: when a particular production factory fell behind on its deliveries, Stalin sent the following cable to the factory manager: 'They are as essential to the Red Army as air and bread.'[18]
Korean War[edit]
From Navy experiments with the KGW-1 Loon, the Navy designation for the German V-1 flying bomb, Marine Captain Marian Cranford Dalby developed the AN/MPQ-14, a system that enabled radar-guided bomb release at night or in poor weather.[19]
F4U-5 Corsairs provide close air support to U.S. Marines fighting Chinese forces during the Korean War, December 1950.
Though the Marine Corps continued its tradition of intimate air-ground cooperation in the Korean War, the newly created United States Air Force (USAF) again moved away from CAS, now to strategic bombers and jet interceptors. Though eventually the Air Force supplied sufficient pilots and forward air controllers to provide battlefield support, coordination was still lacking. Since pilots operated under centralized control, ground controllers were never able to familiarize themselves with pilots, and requests were not processed quickly. Harold K. Johnson, then commander of the 8th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division (later Army Chief of Staff) commented regarding CAS: 'If you want it, you can't get it. If you can get it, it can't find you. If it can find you, it can't identify the target. If it can identify the target, it can't hit it. But if it does hit the target, it doesn't do a great deal of damage anyway.'[20]
It is unsurprising, then, that MacArthur excluded USAF aircraft from the airspace over the Inchon Landing in September 1950, instead relying on Marine Aircraft Group 33 for CAS. In December 1951, Lt. Gen. James Van Fleet, commander of the Eighth U.S. Army, formally requested the United Nations Commander, Gen. Mark Clark, to permanently attach an attack squadron to each of the four army corps in Korea. Though the request was denied, Clark allocated many more Navy and Air Force aircraft to CAS. Despite the rocky start, the USAF would also work to improve its coordination efforts. It eventually required pilots to serve 80 days as forward air controllers (FACs), which gave them an understanding of the difficulties from the ground perspective and helped cooperation when they returned to the cockpit. The USAF also provided airborne FACs in critical locations. The Army also learned to assist, by suppressing anti-aircraft fire prior to air strikes.
The U.S. Army wanted a dedicated USAF presence on the battlefield to reduce fratricide, or the harm of friendly forces. The air liaison officer (ALO) was born. The ALO is an aeronautically rated officer that has spent a tour away from the cockpit, serving as the primary adviser to the ground commander on the capabilities and limitations of airpower.
The Korean War revealed important flaws in the application of CAS. Firstly, the USAF preferred interdiction over fire support while the Army regarded support missions as the main concern for air forces. Then, the Army advocated a degree of decentralization for good reactivity, in contrast with the USAF-favored centralization of CAS. The third point dealt with the lack of training and joint culture, which are necessary for an adequate air-ground integration. Finally, USAF aircraft were not designed for CAS: 'the advent of jet fighters, too fast to adjust their targets, and strategic bombers, too big to be used on theatre, rendered CAS much harder to implement'.[8]
Vietnam and the CAS role debate[edit]
UH-1B with rockets and a grenade launcher
During the late 1950s and early 1960s, the US Army began to identify a dedicated CAS need for itself. The Howze Board, which studied the question, published a landmark report describing the need for a helicopter-based CAS requirement.[21] However, the Army did not follow the Howze Board recommendation initially. Nevertheless, it did eventually adopt the use of helicopter gunships and attack helicopters in the CAS role.[22]
Though the Army gained more control over its own CAS due to the development of the helicopter gunship and attack helicopter, the Air Force continued to provide fixed-wing CAS for Army units. Over the course of the war, the adaptation of The Tactical Air Control System proved crucial to the improvement of Air Force CAS.[23] Jets replaced fixed-wing aircraft with minimal issues. The assumption of responsibility for the air request net by the Air Force improved communication equipment and procedures, which had long been a problem. Additionally, a major step in satisfying the Army's demands for more control over their CAS was the successful implementation of close air support control agencies at the corps level under Air Force control.[23] Other notable adaptations were the utilization of airborne Forward Air Controllers (FACs), a role previously dominated by FACs on the ground, and the use of B-52s for CAS.[23]
U.S. Marine Corps Aviation was much more prepared for the application of CAS in the Vietnam War, due to CAS being its central mission.[24] One of the main debates taking place within the Marine Corps during the war was whether to adopt the helicopter gunship as a part of CAS doctrine and what its adoption would mean for fixed-wing CAS in the Marine Corps.[25] The issue would eventually be put to rest, however, as the helicopter gunship proved crucial in the combat environment of Vietnam.
Hoi4 Spanish Civil War Not Firing Video
AH-1 Cobra over Vietnam
Though helicopters were initially armed merely as defensive measures to support the landing and extraction of troops, their value in this role lead to the modification of early helicopters as dedicated gunship platforms. Though not as fast as fixed-wing aircraft and consequently more vulnerable to anti-aircraft weaponry, helicopters could utilize terrain for cover, and more importantly, had much greater battlefield persistence owing to their low speeds. The latter made them a natural complement to ground forces in the CAS role. In addition, newly developed anti-tank guided missiles, demonstrated to great effectiveness in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, provided aircraft with an effective ranged anti-tank weapon. These considerations motivated armies to promote the helicopter from a support role to a combat arm. Though the U.S. Army controlled rotary-wing assets, coordination continued to pose a problem. During wargames, field commanders tended to hold back attack helicopters out of fear of air defenses, committing them too late to effectively support ground units. The earlier debate over control over CAS assets was reiterated between ground commanders and aviators. Nevertheless, the US Army incrementally gained increased control over its CAS role.[26]
In the mid-1970s, after Vietnam, the USAF decided to train an enlisted force to handle many of the tasks the ALO was saturated with, to include terminal attack control. Now the ALO mainly serves in the liaison role, the intricate details of mission planning and attack guidance left to the enlisted members of the Tactical Air Control Party.
Aircraft[edit]
An A-10 Thunderbolt II firing an AGM-65 Maverick missile.
Various aircraft can fill close air support roles. Military helicopters are often used for close air support and are so closely integrated with ground operations that in most countries they are operated by the army rather than the air force. Fighters and ground attack aircraft like the A-10 Thunderbolt II provide close air support using rockets, missiles, small bombs, and strafing runs.
In World War II, dive bombers and fighters were used in close air support. Dive bombing permitted greater accuracy than level bombing runs, while the rapid altitude change made it more difficult for antiaircraft gunners to track. The Junkers Ju 87Stuka is a well known example of a dive bomber built for precision bombing but which was successfully utilised for CAS. It was fitted with wind-blown whistles on its landing gear to enhance its psychological effect. Some variants of the Stuka were equipped with 37 mm anti-tank cannon.
Other than the A-36, a P-51 modified with dive brakes, the Americans and British used no dedicated CAS aircraft in World War II, preferring fighters or fighter-bombers that could be pressed into CAS service. While some such as the Hawker Typhoon and the P-47 Thunderbolt, performed admirably in that role, there were a number of compromises that prevented most fighters from making effective CAS platforms. Fighters were usually optimized for high-altitude operations without bombs or other external ordnance â flying at low level with bombs quickly expended fuel. Cannons had to be mounted differently for strafing â strafing required a further and lower convergence point than aerial combat did.
Of the World War II allies, the Soviet Union used specifically designed ground attack aircraft more than the UK and US. Such aircraft included the Ilyushin Il-2, the single most produced military aircraft design in all of aviation history. The Soviets also used the Polikarpov Po-2, a biplane, as a ground attack aircraft.
A US Navy F/A-18F Super Hornet in a close air support configuration over Afghanistan in 2009
The Royal NavyHawker Sea Fury fighters and the U.S. Vought F4U Corsair and Douglas A-1 Skyraider were operated during the Korean War while the latter continued to be used throughout the Vietnam War.
In the Vietnam War, the United States introduced fixed and rotary wing gunships, cargo aircraft refitted as gun platforms to serve as close air support and air interdiction aircraft. The first of these was the AC-47 Spooky. Later models include the Fairchild AC-119 and the Lockheed AC-130; the latter was used extensively in Afghanistan and Iraq.
B-1B Lancer on a close air support mission in Afghanistan in 2008
B-1B Lancer employing GBU-38's in Iraq
Usually close support is thought to be only carried out by fighter-bombers or dedicated ground-attack aircraft, such as the A-10 Thunderbolt II (Warthog) or Su-25 (Frogfoot), but even large high-altitude bombers have successfully filled close support roles using precision-guided munitions. During Operation Enduring Freedom, the lack of fighter aircraft forced military planners to rely heavily on US bombers, particularly the B-1B Lancer, to fill the CAS role. Bomber CAS, relying mainly on GPS guided weapons and laser-guided JDAMs has evolved into a devastating tactical employment methodology and has changed US doctrinal thinking regarding CAS in general. With significantly longer loiter times, range, and weapon capacity, bombers can be deployed to bases outside of the immediate battlefield area, with 12-hour missions being commonplace since 2001. After the initial collapse of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, airfields in Afghanistan became available for continuing operations against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. This resulted in a great number of CAS operations being undertaken by aircraft from Belgium (F-16 Fighting Falcon), Denmark (F-16), France (Mirage 2000D), the Netherlands (F-16), Norway (F-16), the United Kingdom (Harrier GR7s, GR9s and Tornado GR4s) and the United States (A-10, F-16, AV-8B Harrier II, F-15E Strike Eagle, F/A-18 Hornet, F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, UH-1Y Venom).
Technological enhancement[edit]
The use of information technology to direct and coordinate precision air support has increased the importance of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance in utilizing CAS. Laser, GPS, and battlefield data transfer are routinely used to coordinate with a wide variety of air platforms able to provide CAS. Recent doctrine[27]reflects the increased use of electronic and optical technology to direct targeted fires for CAS. Air platforms communicating with ground forces can also provide additional aerial-to-ground visual search, ground-convoy escort, and enhancement of command and control (C2), assets which can be particularly important for low intensity conflict.[28]
See also[edit]
Notes[edit]
References[edit]
External links[edit]
Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Close_air_support&oldid=904885921'
Hearts of Iron Cheats
Benito Mussolini (1883â1945)
Walter Audisio, the Italian partisan who claimed to have shot him.
The death of Benito Mussolini, the deposed Italian fascist dictator, occurred on 28 April 1945, in the final days of World War II in Europe, when he was summarily executed by an Italian partisan in the small village of Giulino di Mezzegra in northern Italy. The âofficialâ version of events[note 1] is that Mussolini was shot by Walter Audisio, a communist partisan who used the nom de guerre of 'Colonel Valerio'.[1] However, since the end of the war, the circumstances of Mussolini's death, and the identity of his killer, have been subjects of continuing confusion, dispute and controversy in Italy.
In 1940, Mussolini took his country into World War II on the side of Nazi Germany but soon was met with military failure. By the autumn of 1943, he was reduced to being the leader of a German puppet state in northern Italy and was faced with the Allied advance from the south and an increasingly violent internal conflict with the partisans. In April 1945, with the Allies breaking through the last German defences in northern Italy and a general uprising of the partisans taking hold in the cities, Mussolini's situation became untenable. On 25 April he fled Milan, where he had been based, and tried to escape to the Swiss border. He and his mistress, Claretta Petacci, were captured on 27 April by local partisans near the village of Dongo on Lake Como. Mussolini and Petacci were shot the following afternoon, two days before Adolf Hitler's suicide.
The bodies of Mussolini and Petacci were taken to Milan and left in a suburban square, the Piazzale Loreto, for a large angry crowd to insult and physically abuse. They were then hung upside down from a metal girder above a service station on the square. The bodies were beaten, shot at, and hit with hammers. Initially, Mussolini was buried in an unmarked grave but, in 1946, his body was dug up and stolen by fascist supporters. Four months later it was recovered by the authorities who then kept it hidden for the next eleven years. Eventually, in 1957, his remains were allowed to be interred in the Mussolini family crypt in his home town of Predappio. His tomb has become a place of pilgrimage for neo-fascists and the anniversary of his death is marked by neo-fascist rallies.
In the post-war years, the 'official' version of Mussolini's death has been questioned in Italy (but, generally, not internationally) in a way that has drawn comparison with the John F. Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories. Journalists, politicians and historians, doubting the veracity of Audisio's account, have put forward a wide variety of theories and speculation as to how Mussolini died and who was responsible. At least twelve different individuals have, at various times, been claimed to be the killer.
These have included Luigi Longo and Sandro Pertini who subsequently became general secretary of the Italian Communist Party and President of Italy respectively. Several writers believe that Mussolini's death was part of a British special forces operation. The aim was supposedly to retrieve compromising 'secret agreements' and correspondence with Winston Churchill that Mussolini had allegedly been carrying when he was captured. However, the 'official' explanation, with Audisio as Mussolini's executioner, remains the most credible narrative.
Preceding events[edit]Background[edit]
Italian Social Republic: Dec. 1943, light and dark green; Sept. 1944, dark green only.
Mussolini had been Italyâs fascist leader since 1922, first as prime minister and, following his seizure of dictatorial powers in 1925, with the title Il Duce. He took the country into World War II on the side of Nazi Germany in June 1940.[2] Following the Allied invasion of Sicily in July 1943, Mussolini was deposed and put under arrest; Italy then switched sides and joined the Allies.[3] Later that year, he was rescued from prison in the Gran Sasso raid by German special forces and Hitler installed him as leader of the Italian Social Republic, a German puppet state set up in northern Italy and based at the town of Salò near Lake Garda.[4] By 1944, the 'Salò Republic', as it came to be called, was threatened not only by the Allies advancing from the south but also internally by Italian anti-fascist partisans, in a brutal conflict that was to become known as the Italian civil war.[5]
Slowly fighting their way up the Italian peninsula, the Allies took Rome and then Florence in the summer of 1944 and later that year they began advancing into northern Italy. With the final collapse of the German army's Gothic Line in April 1945, total defeat for the Salò Republic and its German protectors was imminent.[6]
From mid-April Mussolini based himself in Milan, and he and his government took up residence in the city's Prefecture.[7] At the end of the month, the partisan leadership, the Comitato di Liberazione Nazionale Alta Italia (CLNAI),[note 2] declared a general uprising in the main northern cities as the German forces retreated.[9] With the CLNAI's assumption of control in Milan and the German army in northern Italy about to surrender, Mussolini fled the city on 25 April and attempted to escape north to Switzerland.[9][10]
Mussolini abandoning the Prefecture in Milan on 25 April 1945. Believed to be the last photo of him alive.
On the same day as Mussolini left Milan, the CNLAI declared:
The members of the fascist government and those fascist leaders who are guilty of having suppressed constitutional guarantees, destroyed the people's freedoms, created the fascist regime, compromised and betrayed the country, bringing it to the current catastrophe are to be punished with the penalty of death.[11]
ââCLNAI, Decree issued 25 April 1945
Capture and arrest[edit]
Mussolini's route (pink line) around Lake Como after fleeing Milan
On 27 April 1945, Mussolini and his mistress Claretta Petacci, together with other fascist leaders, were travelling in a German convoy near the village of Dongo on the north western shore of Lake Como. A group of local communist partisans led by Pier Luigi Bellini delle Stelle and Urbano Lazzaro attacked the convoy and forced it to halt. The partisans recognised one Italian fascist leader in the convoy, but not Mussolini at this stage, and made the Germans hand over all the Italians in exchange for allowing the Germans to proceed. Eventually Mussolini was discovered slumped in one of the convoy vehicles.[12] Lazzaro later said that:
His face was like wax and his stare glassy, but somehow blind. I read utter exhaustion, but not fear .. Mussolini seemed completely lacking in will, spiritually dead.[12]
The partisans arrested Mussolini and took him to Dongo, where he spent part of the night in the local barracks.[12] In Dongo, Mussolini was reunited with Petacci, who had requested to join him, at about 2:30 a.m. of 28 April.[13][14] In all, over fifty fascist leaders and their families were found in the convoy and arrested by the partisans. Aside from Mussolini and Petacci, sixteen of the most prominent of them would be summarily shot in Dongo the following day and a further ten would be killed over two successive nights.[15]
Claretta Petacci, Mussolini's mistress, was captured and executed with him.
Fighting was still going on in the area around Dongo. Fearing that Mussolini and Petacci might be rescued by fascist supporters, the partisans drove them, in the middle of the night, to a nearby farm of a peasant family named De Maria; they believed this would be a safe place to hold them. Mussolini and Petacci spent the rest of the night and most of the following day there.[16]
On the evening of Mussolini's capture, Sandro Pertini, the Socialist partisan leader in northern Italy, announced on Radio Milano:
The head of this association of delinquents, Mussolini, while yellow with rancour and fear and trying to cross the Swiss frontier, has been arrested. He must be handed over to a tribunal of the people so it can judge him quickly. We want this, even though we think an execution platoon is too much of an honour for this man. He would deserve to be killed like a mangy dog.[17]
Order to execute[edit]
Differing accounts exist of who made the decision that Mussolini should be summarily executed. Palmiro Togliatti, the Secretary-General of the Communist Party, claimed that he had ordered Mussolini's execution prior to his capture. Togliatti said he had done so by a radio message on 26 April 1945 with the words: 'Only one thing is needed to decide that they [Mussolini and the other fascist leaders] must pay with their lives: the question of their identity'.[18] He also claimed that he had given the order as deputy prime minister of the government in Rome and as leader of the Communist Party. Ivanoe Bonomi, the prime minister, later denied that this was said with his government's authority or approval.[18] A senior communist in Milan, Luigi Longo, said that the order came from the General Command of the partisan military units 'in application of a CLNAI decision'.[18] Longo subsequently gave a different story: he said that when he and Fermo Solari, a member of the Action Party (which was part of the CLNAI), heard the news of Mussolini's capture they immediately agreed that he should be summarily executed and Longo gave the order for it to be carried out.[18]
Luigi Longo (left) and Palmiro Togliatti at a Communist Party congress after the war.
According to Leo Valiani, the Action Party representative on the CLNAI, the decision to execute Mussolini was taken on the night of 27/28 April by a group acting on behalf of the CLNAI comprising himself, Sandro Pertini, and the communists Emilio Sereni and Luigi Longo.[17] The CLNAI subsequently announced, on the day after his death, that Mussolini had been executed on its orders.[10]
In any event, Longo instructed a communist partisan of the General Command, Walter Audisio, to go immediately to Dongo to carry out the order. According to Longo, he did so with the words 'go and shoot him'.[19] Longo asked another partisan, Aldo Lampredi, to go as well because, according to Lampredi, Longo thought Audisio was 'impudent, too inflexible and rash'.[19]
The entrance to the Villa Belmonte. A black cross in the wall marks the site of execution.
Execution[edit]
Although several conflicting versions and theories of how Mussolini and Petacci died were put forward after the war, the account of Walter Audisio, or at least its essential components, remains the most credible and is sometimes referred to in Italy as the 'official' version.[20][21][22]
It was largely confirmed by an account provided by Aldo Lampredi[23] and the 'classical' narrative of the story was set out in books written in the 1960s by Bellini delle Stelle and Urbano Lazzaro, and the journalist Franco Bandini.[24] Although each of these accounts vary in detail, they are consistent on the main facts.[21]
Audisio and Lampredi left Milan for Dongo early on the morning of 28 April to carry out the orders Audisio had been given by Longo.[25][26] On arrival in Dongo, they met Bellini delle Stelle, who was the local partisan commander, to arrange for Mussolini to be handed over to them.[25][26] Audisio used the nom de guerre of 'Colonnello Valerio' during his mission.[25][27]
Michele Moretti's French-made MAS-38 submachine gun, said to have been used by Walter Audisio to shoot Benito Mussolini (National Historical Museum of Albania)
In the afternoon, he, with other partisans, including Aldo Lampredi and Michele Moretti, drove to the De Maria family's farmhouse to collect Mussolini and Petacci.[28][29] After they were picked up, they drove a short distance to the village of Giulino de Mezzegra.[30] The vehicle pulled up at the entrance of the Villa Belmonte on a narrow road known as via XXIV maggio and Mussolini and Petacci were told to get out and stand by the villa's wall.[25][30][31] Audisio then shot them at 4:10p.m. with a submachine gun borrowed from Moretti, his own gun having jammed.[25][29][32]
There were differences in Lampredi's account and that of Audisio. Audisio presented Mussolini as acting in a cowardly manner immediately prior to his death whereas Lampredi did not. Audisio said he read out a sentence of death, whereas Lampredi omitted this. Lampredi said that Mussolini's last words were 'aim at my heart'. In Audisio's account, Mussolini said nothing immediately prior to or during the execution.[32][33]
Differences also exist with the account given by others involved, including Lazzaro and Bellini delle Stelle. According to the latter, when he met Audisio in Dongo, Audisio asked for a list of the fascist prisoners that had been captured the previous day and marked Mussolini's and Petacci's names for execution. Bellini delle Stelle said he challenged Audisio as to why Petacci should be executed. Audisio replied that she had been Mussolini's adviser, had inspired his policies and was 'just as responsible as he is'. According to Bellini delle Stelle no other discussion or formalities concerning the decision to execute them took place.[34]
Audisio gave a different account. He claimed that on 28 April he convened a 'war tribunal' in Dongo comprising Lampredi, Bellini delle Stelle, Michele Moretti and Lazzaro with himself as president. The tribunal condemned Mussolini and Petacci to death. There were no objections to any of the proposed executions.[34] Urbano Lazzaro later denied that such a tribunal had been convened and said:
I was convinced Mussolini deserved death .. but there should have been a trial according to law. It was very barbarous.[34]
In a book he wrote in the 1970s, Audisio argued that the decision to execute Mussolini taken at the meeting in Dongo of the partisan leaders on 28 April constituted a valid judgment of a tribunal under Article 15 of the CNLAI's ordinance on the Constitution of Courts of War.[35] However, the lack of a judge or a Commissario di Guerra (required by the ordinance to be present) casts doubt on this assertion.[36][note 3]
Subsequent events[edit]
During his dictatorship, representations of Mussolini's body â for example pictures of him engaged in physical labour either bare-chested or half-naked â formed a central part of fascist propaganda. His body remained a potent symbol after his death, causing it to be either revered by supporters or treated with contempt and disrespect by opponents, and assuming a broader political significance.[38][39]
Piazzale Loreto[edit]
The corpse of Mussolini (second from left) next to Petacci (middle) and other executed fascists in Piazzale Loreto, Milan, 1945
In the evening of 28 April, the bodies of Mussolini, Petacci, and the other executed fascists were loaded onto a van and trucked south to Milan. On arriving in the city in the early hours of 29 April, they were dumped on the ground in the Piazzale Loreto, a suburban square near the main railway station.[40][41] The choice of location was deliberate. Fifteen partisans had been shot there in August 1944 in retaliation for partisan attacks and Allied bombing raids, and their bodies had then been left on public display. At the time, Mussolini is said to have remarked 'for the blood of Piazzale Loreto, we shall pay dearly'.[41]
Their bodies were left in a heap, and by 9:00a.m. a considerable crowd had gathered. The corpses were pelted with vegetables, spat at, urinated on, shot at and kicked; Mussolini's face was disfigured by beatings.[42][43] An American eye witness described the crowd as 'sinister, depraved, out of control'.[43] After a while, the bodies were hoisted up on to the metal girder framework of a half-built Standard Oil service station, and hung upside down on meat hooks.[42][43][44] This mode of hanging had been used in northern Italy since medieval times to stress the 'infamy' of the hanged. However, the reason given by those involved in hanging Mussolini and the others in this way was to protect the bodies from the mob. Movie footage of what happened appears to confirm that to be the case.[45]
Morgue and autopsy[edit]
The bodies of Mussolini and Petacci photographed by a US army cameraman in the Milan city morgue.
At about 2:00p.m., the American military authorities, who had arrived in the city, ordered that the bodies be taken down and delivered to the city morgue for autopsies to be carried out. A US army cameraman took photographs of the bodies for publication, including one with Mussolini and Petacci positioned in a macabre pose as though they were arm-in-arm.[46]
On 30 April, an autopsy was carried out on Mussolini at the Institute of Legal Medicine in Milan. One version of the subsequent report indicated that he had been shot with nine bullets, while another version specified seven bullets. Four bullets near the heart were given as the cause of death. The calibres of the bullets were not identified.[47] Samples of Mussolini's brain were taken and sent to America for analysis. The intention was to prove the hypothesis that syphilis had caused insanity in him, but nothing resulted from the analysis;[48] no evidence of syphilis was found on his body either. No autopsy was carried out on Petacci.[49]
Interment and theft of corpse[edit]
After his death and the display of his corpse in Milan, Mussolini was buried in an unmarked grave in the Musocco cemetery, to the north of the city. On Easter Sunday 1946, Mussolini's body was located and dug up by a young fascist, Domenico Leccisi, and two friends.[50] Over a period of sixteen weeks it was moved from place to place â the hiding places included a villa, a monastery and a convent â while the authorities searched for it.[38] Eventually, in August, the body (with a leg missing) was tracked down to the Certosa di Pavia, a monastery not far from Milan. Two Franciscan friars were charged with assisting Leccisi to hide the body.[50][51]
The authorities then arranged for the body to be hidden at a Capuchin monastery in the small town of Cerro Maggiore where it remained for the next eleven years. The whereabouts of the body was kept a secret, even from Mussolini's family.[52] This remained the position until May 1957, when the newly appointed Prime Minister, Adone Zoli, agreed to Mussolini's re-interment at his place of birth in Predappio in Romagna. Zoli was reliant on the far right (including Leccisi himself, who was now a neo-fascist party deputy) to support him in Parliament. He also came from Predappio and knew Mussolini's widow, Rachele, well.[53]
Tomb and anniversary of death[edit]Guernica Pablo Picasso
Mussolini's tomb in his family crypt, Predappio
The re-interment in the Mussolini family crypt in Predappio was carried out on 1 September 1957, with supporters present giving the fascist salute. Mussolini was laid to rest in a large stone sarcophagus.[note 4] The tomb is decorated with fascist symbols and contains a large marble head of Mussolini. In front of the tomb is a register for visitors paying their respects to sign. The tomb has become a neo-fascist place of pilgrimage. The numbers signing the tomb's register range from dozens to hundreds per day, with thousands signing on certain anniversaries; almost all the comments left are supportive of Mussolini.[53]
The anniversary of Mussolini's death on 28 April has become one of three dates neo-fascist supporters mark with major rallies. In Predappio, a march takes place between the centre of town and the cemetery. The event usually attracts supporters in the thousands and includes speeches, songs and people giving the fascist salute.[55]
Post-war controversy[edit]
Outside of Italy, Audisio's version of how Mussolini was executed has largely been accepted and is uncontroversial.[1] However, within Italy, the subject has been a matter of extensive debate and dispute since the late 1940s to the present and a variety of theories of how Mussolini died has proliferated.[10][1] At least 12 different individuals have been identified at various times as being responsible for carrying out the shooting.[1] Comparisons have been made with the John F. Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories,[10] and it has been described as the Italian equivalent of that speculation.[1]
Reception of Audisio's version[edit]
Until 1947, Audisio's involvement was kept a secret, and in the earliest descriptions of the events (in a series of articles in the Communist Party newspaper L'Unità in late 1945) the person who carried out the shootings was only referred to as 'Colonnello Valerio'.[27]
Aldo Lampredi accompanied Audisio on his mission and wrote an account of it in 1972.
Audisio was first named in a series of articles in the newspaper Il Tempo in March 1947 and the Communist Party subsequently confirmed Audisio's involvement. Audisio himself did not speak publicly about it until he published his account in a series of five articles in L'Unità later that month (and repeated in a book that Audisio later wrote which was published in 1975, two years after his death).[27] Other versions of the story were also published, including, in the 1960s, two books setting out the 'classical' account of the story: Dongo, la fine di Mussolini by Lazzaro and Bellini delle Stelle and Le ultime 95 ore di Mussolini by journalist Franco Bandini.[24]
Before long, it was noted that there were discrepancies between Audisio's original story published in L'Unità , subsequent versions that he provided and the versions of events provided by others. Although his account most probably is built around the facts, it was certainly embellished.[56] The discrepancies and obvious exaggerations, coupled with the belief that the Communist Party had selected him to claim responsibility for their own political purposes, led some in Italy to believe that his story was wholly or largely untrue.[56]
In 1996, a previously unpublished private account written in 1972 by Aldo Lampredi for the Communist Party's archives, appeared in L'Unità . In it, Lampredi confirmed the key facts of Audisio's story but without the embellishments. Lampredi was undoubtedly an eyewitness and, because he prepared his narrative for the private records of the Communist Party â and not for publication â it was perceived that he had no motivation other than to tell the truth. Furthermore, he had had a reputation for being reliable and trustworthy; he was also known to have disliked Audisio personally. For all these reasons it was seen as significant that he largely confirmed Audisio's account. After Lampredi's account was published, most, but not all, commentators were convinced of its veracity. The historian Giorgio Bocca commented that 'it sweeps away all the bad novels constructed over 50 years on the end of the Duce of fascism .. There was no possibility that the many ridiculous versions put about in these years were true..The truth is now unmistakably clear'.[57]
Claims by Lazzaro[edit]
Urbano Lazzaro, 1945, indicating a bullet hole near the entrance to the Villa Belmonte.
In his 1993 book Dongo: half a century of lies, the partisan leader Urbano Lazzaro repeated a claim he had made earlier that Luigi Longo and not Audisio, was 'Colonnello Valerio'. He also claimed that Mussolini was inadvertently wounded earlier in the day when Petacci tried to grab the gun of one of the partisans, who killed Petacci and Michele Moretti then shot dead Mussolini.[58][59][60]
The 'British hypothesis'[edit]
There have been several claims that Britain's wartime covert operations unit, the Special Operations Executive (SOE), was responsible for Mussolini's death, and that it may have even been ordered by the British prime minister, Winston Churchill. Allegedly, it was part of a 'cover up' to retrieve 'secret agreements' and compromising correspondence between the two men, which Mussolini was carrying when he was captured by partisans. It is said that the correspondence included offers from Churchill of peace and territorial concessions in exchange for Mussolini persuading Hitler to join the western Allies in an alliance against the Soviet Union.[61][62] Proponents of this theory have included historians such as Renzo De Felice[63] and Pierre Milza[64] and journalists including Peter Tompkins[62] and Luciano Garibaldi;[65] however, the theory has been dismissed by many.[61][62][63]
Winston Churchill in 1940
In 1994 Bruno Lonati, a former partisan leader, published a book in which he claimed that he had shot Mussolini and he was accompanied on his mission by a British army officer called 'John', who shot Petacci.[10][66] Journalist Peter Tompkins claimed to have established that 'John' was Robert Maccarrone, a British SOE agent who had Sicilian ancestry. According to Lonati, he and 'John' went to the De Maria farmhouse in the morning of 28 April and killed Mussolini and Petacci at about 11:00a.m.[62][67] In 2004, the Italian state television channel, RAI, broadcast a documentary, co-produced by Tompkins, in which the theory was put forward. Lonati was interviewed for the documentary and claimed that when he arrived at the farmhouse:
Petacci was sitting on the bed and Mussolini was standing. 'John' took me outside and told me his orders were to eliminate them both, because Petacci knew many things. I said I could not shoot Petacci, so John said he would shoot her himself, while making it quite clear that Mussolini however, had to be killed by an Italian.[62]
They took them out of the house and, at the corner of a nearby lane they were stood against a fence and shot. The documentary included an interview with Dorina Mazzola who said that her mother had seen the shooting. She also said that she herself had heard the shots and that she 'looked at the clock, it was almost 11'. The documentary went on to claim that the later shootings at the Villa Belmonte were subsequently staged as part of the 'cover up'.[62]
Why was topic removed from celebrations in california. To me, the question 'Why is the research you're interested in important' is not the same as 'Why are you interested in the research topic?' Depending on the situation, it could mean 'Why should X pay for this research?' But to me, it really means 'How does your work fit in with current human knowledge about this topic?' Wait a minute, what happened with Galaxy Truffles in Celebrations? Topics and Twix were both removed in 2006. Creaminess that the bunnies and celebrations are. Celebrations are a chocolate collection made by Mars, Incorporated, launched in 1997 comprising miniature versions of Mars-produced chocolate bars. With the tagline 'Share the joy', Celebrations were the first mixed box of chocolates to bring together confectionery which had been already released in one box or tin instead of introducing new, especially-created confectionery. Topic (chocolate bar) These adverts featured actors Simon Pegg and Mark Heap who both appeared in the cult British TV comedy Spaced. The bar was removed from boxes of Celebrations in 2006, along with Twix (although Twix has subsequently been reintroduced).
The theory has been criticised for lacking any serious evidence, particularly on the existence of the correspondence with Churchill.[61][68] Commenting on the RAI television documentary in 2004, Christopher Woods, researcher for the official history of the SOE, dismissed these claims saying that 'it's just love of conspiracy-making'.[62]
Other 'earlier death' theories[edit]
The De Maria farmhouse, c.â1945
Some, including most persistently the fascist journalist Giorgio Pisanò, have claimed that Mussolini and Petacci were shot earlier in the day near the De Maria farmhouse and that the execution at Giulino de Mezzegra was staged with corpses.[69][70] The first to put this forward was Franco Bandini in 1978.[71]
Other theories[edit]
Other theories have been published, including allegations that not only Luigi Longo, subsequently leader of the Communist Party in post-war Italy, but also Sandro Pertini, a future President of Italy, carried out the shootings. Others have claimed that Mussolini (or Mussolini and Petacci together) committed suicide with cyanide capsules.[72]
Notes[edit]
References[edit]
Bibliography[edit]Books[edit]
Newspaper articles, journals and websites[edit]
External links[edit]
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