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The Chianti Raiders: The Extraordinary Story of the Italian Air Force in the Battle of Britain
 
 
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The Chianti Raiders: The Extraordinary Story of the Italian Air Force in the Battle of Britain (Hardcover)

by Peter Haining (Author)
3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
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  • This item: The Chianti Raiders: The Extraordinary Story of the Italian Air Force in the Battle of Britain by Peter Haining

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Product details

  • Hardcover: 224 pages
  • Publisher: Robson Books Ltd; illustrated edition edition (26 Aug 2005)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 1861058292
  • ISBN-13: 978-1861058294
  • Product Dimensions: 23.4 x 16.2 x 2.6 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 458,912 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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    #60 in  Books > History > Military History > Battles & Campaigns > Battle of Britain

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Product Description

Product Description

In this account of the Battle of Britain, Peter Haining tells the story of Italian-led air raids on England, the fighter pilot with Mafia connections, eyewitness testimonies from civilians and RAF squadrons, as well as crashes, imprisonments and escapes.

About the Author

Former newspaper reporter, magazine editor and publishing executive Peter Haining became a full-time writer in the Seventies. He is the author of the successful Robson books 'The Flying Bomb War - Contemporary Eyewitness Accounts of the German V1 and V2 Raids on Britain' (1861055811), 'Sweeney Todd' (1861055870), 'Where the Eagle Landed' (1861057504) and 'The Jail That Went To Sea' (186105727X). Haining lives in Suffolk.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars A Fascinating Read, 29 Sep 2008
By Mr. H. F. Murden (New Barnet, Herts, UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
Peter Haining has written a colourful summary of the Corpo Aero Italiano's forays into British skys during the Autumn/Winter of 1940 through to the Spring of the following year. Battling against the weather over the channel, not to mention the ever vigilant RAF, and flying inferior equipment the Italian pilots and aircrew met with very limited success.

After setting the political and military scene behind the Regia Aeronautica, the author uses firsthand accounts from the CAI and RAF pilots as well as those civilians affected by the raids to shed some light on a subject which has received very little coverage elsewhere.

A selection of interesting black and white photographs serve to complement the written text.
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3.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating subject but sloppily researched., 21 Jan 2010
With this book Peter Haining sheds some light on the little-known participation of the Italian Air Force in the Battle of Britain. It is an absorbing read written in an easily accessible style and, apart from the final two rather irrelevant chapters, illuminates a small part of British and Italian military history.
But, and this is a major but, can you trust Haining's veracity? As someone with an interest in the air battles of the Second World War, especially the Battle of Britain, I found myself constantly picking out factual errors in the text. Haining's research is shown to be very poor, and I'm no expert. It makes me wonder that if the part of the story I am familiar with is riddled with innaccuracies, just how bad is the rest of it?

Examples:

p.67 '...one shilling (ten pence).' - One shilling is equal to FIVE pence in decimal currency.
p.70 'A single-engine Junkers Ju52...' - The Ju52 had THREE engines.
p.75 '(Ramsgate's) main thoroughfare, Military Road...' - Military Road runs along the Inner basin of the harbour, and in 1940 didn't lead anywhere.
p.76 'RAF station of Manston... with a long and very wide runway frequently used by damaged aircraft for emergency landings.' - The large runway was constructed in 1943. In 1940 Manston was still a grass airfield.
p.76 '(Bf109)... Armed with two MG FF cannons firing sixty rounds per gun...' - plus two wing-mounted MG17 machine-guns with 1,000 rounds per gun.
p.82 '... the (Spitfire's) Rolls-Royce Merlin II engine...' - By the Battle of Britain the Spitfire I's engine had been upgraded to the Merlin III.
p.82 '... (Spitfire's) four 7.7 mm Browning machine-guns.' - Spitfires of the time had EIGHT machine guns, four in each wing. They are commonly known as .303 calibre, as the metric system wasn't in use in Britain then.
p.82 'If necessary the Spitfire could be armed with a 500-lb (230-kg) bomb.' - Not in 1940 it couldn't. The Mk V was the first version able to carry bombs and didn't appear until the following year, carrying either 1x 500-lb or 2x 250-lb bombs.

That's in just 15 pages. Are the 'facts' about the Italian air force and aircraft are so mangled as well? Haining obviously didn't bother to visit some of the places he describes, but took a lot of his information from the web. (The Port of Ramsgate's web site describes Military Road as 'the harbour's main thoroughfare', not the town's, but it's an obvious crib.)

This book would have benefited from the services of a competent copy-editor but, despite all its faults, is still worth reading if you are prepared to ignore the inaccuracies and be content with the broader picture.

Oh, the map in the front is poor too. Hard to decipher, and Manston shown as being NW of Canterbury, when in fact it's 12 miles ENE of there.
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