A.D.R.A Royal italian air force commando

Original text in Italian here whit photos: BUNKER AFRIKANO - A.D.R.A. ARDITI DISTRUTTORI REGIA AERONAUTICA



This is my first thread, i have translated the italian text and my english is quite “raw” ...so i'm sorry if the language might seem childish or uncorrect.

Hope that you could find it interesting




A.D.R.A. Arditi Distruttori Regia Aeronautica - Royal Italian Air Force Commando


During the word war II italian armed forces deploy a number of small unit hightly specialized and trained in order to reach some different goals. Is the case of ADRA, a small unit (at least 500 men) born in 1941 for the invasion of Malta. For the conquest of the island the plan provided a series of small landing of San Marco battalion and a drop of paratroopers. This drop was to be preceded by highly specialized units in order to gain some intelligence about the enemy and prepare the landing zones. The only italian armed force that hasn't got airborne “special forces” was the Italian Air force (even Carabinieri has got a paratroopers regiment, the “Tuscania”), so, both for reason of prestige and for Malta invasion, Royal italian air force starts the training of a battalion whit the main goal of destroy airfields, aeronautic facilities and planes. The training was pretty hard, in a first class of 2000 volunteers only 500 overcame the initial test and many less became ADRA. The patent of paratroopers was achieved after six drop, one in every conditions: day, night whit moonlight, night full black, different heights ecc ecc. After that, a course about sabotage show how destroy a plane and air bases facilities whitout explosives (in case that ADRA operator loses his equipement during the drop), then a course about explosives and weapons show how destroy using small quantities of explosives and how use MAB-38 SMG and Beretta 9corto gun in fight. As we knows the invasion of Malta never comes, so the ADRA moves to the north african front on 12 Novembre 1942 under the comand of lt. Colonel Edvino Dalmas .


First action: Gebel Abiod
In this days a mechanised italo-german unit under the comand of major Witzig ( the same man that conquered Eben Emael in 1940) was engaged in hard fighting against the advancing allies and needed reinforcements. ADRA battalion was sent to strengthen the axis position. On 17 novembre 308 man of ADRA battalion take positions on Gebel Abiod. After 10 days of resistence reinforcement comes and strengthened the line. This firs action was a success but payed hight: the battalion was decimated and even the commander was seriously wounded by a british granade and evacuate in Italy. After few days all the survivors come back to Italy. Rebuild an highly trained units takes months, indeed the battalion fights again only in june 1943 always under the command of Colonel Dalmas.


Second action: Strike on allied air bases in north africa
ADRA battalion see the action again in africa, this time for the goal for which they were born: destroy enemy airfields. The air bases to hit are those from which it was clear that, observing the great storage of aircraft, the allies want to use to starts the invasions of Sicily. 140 ADRA men divided in 14 assault teams would hit the airfields of Bengasi, Biskra, Orano, Algeri and some in Tunisia. The 14 teams take off from different bases: 2 planes from Crete (Iraklion) to Bengasi, 3 planes from Sicily (Gerbini) to Tunisia, 3 planes from Sardinia (Decimomannu) to Biskra and the last 3 from southern france (Salôn en Provencece) to Algeri and Orano. In the night between 13 and 14 June 1943 the planes drop ADRA commandos, but they didn't know that the planes were out of their course, so, half of the strike force fall near an american unit and, after a little fight, was neutralized. The mission was compromised by the lost of almost half of the force and also, the element of surprise was lost. The few survivors tried to finish their work, the team whit the goal to hit Biskra never reach the airfield, however starts to strike all the military objectives in the area conducting several actions for days before being captured or killed. The team in algeria after 4 days of travel destroy the railway bridge of Beni Mansur. 2 ADRA operators reach their objectives. They infiltrate themselves in Benina airfield and destroy 18 allied bombers (also using an abandoned 500 kg german bomb) during the night of 21 June. They were captured by british forces the day after. The action was a mid-seccess or a mid-fail? The entire strike force was lost whit the only results of 18 bombers destroied. More important was the mess and the confusion caused by the destruction of the bridge and by the other small actions.


Last action: 8th September
200 ADRA operators were in italy during 8th september. After the armistice, those men defend the airfields of Tarquinia, Cerveteri and Viterbo repel all the german attacks. After this period of confusion the greatest part of this soldiers follow their commander (Dalmas) to the north, where, in Tradate (few km from where i live) build the paratrooper school of R.S.I.




So, this is the little history of an unknow unit of second world war

 

ADRA EQUIPMENT
It seems difficult distinguish an ADRA operator from a "normal" paratrooper, the equipment is the same, whit some exception: the uniform under the mimetic dress is not that of the army, but it designed specifically for air force, also the helmet is a mod.42 whit protection for the nose. The parachute is the IF/41SP made in silk (mimetic for day, anthracite for night). the weapon is Beretta MAB-38A submachine gun

 

Very good Jack! I must confess that I had little knowlegde of ADRA and it's actions.

There wasn't any plan for the rescue of those commandos?

 

this is a good question

Well, there wasn't a rescue plan for the teams in Algeria and Tunisia, they would have to surrender after the action. For Bengasi team, 10 days after, a plane would have to land in a desert location south of El Carruba. Unfortunately none reach the randez vous whit the plane.