Italo Balbo
Italo Balbo led one of the four columns on Rome in 1922, built the Italian air force, and was shot down by his own side. Born in Ferrara in 1896, he fought in the Alpini in the First World War and won two silver medals, and organised the squadristi in his province afterwards — the blackshirt gangs that broke socialist unions and cooperatives in the Po valley, in which he was among the most violent of the provincial ras. He was one of the four quadrumvirs who directed the March on Rome in October 1922 and was made air minister in 1926. What he did with it made him famous. He built the Regia Aeronautica from very little, and staged mass formation flights as demonstrations — twelve aircraft to Odessa, then to Brazil, and in July 1933 twenty-four flying boats from Rome to Chicago and back for the World's Fair, a crossing of the North Atlantic in formation that had never been attempted. New York gave him a ticker-tape parade, Roosevelt received him, and a street in Chicago still carries his name. The fame was the problem. He was the only fascist with an independent reputation, he opposed the German alliance and the racial laws of 1938 openly, and Mussolini sent him to Libya as governor-general the same year. He governed it energetically, settling tens of thousands of Italian farmers and extending citizenship rights to Libyans. He was killed over Tobruk in June 1940 by Italian anti-aircraft fire, days after Italy entered the war.
- Lived: 1896 CE – 1940 CE
- Nationality: Italian
- Roles: aviator, general, colonial_governor, politician
