1943 Fiat G.55 Centauro
You can see it in the picture above, we are in the middle of World War II, where fixed-wing planes replaced biplanes. The G.50 fighter originally had a radial engine, which was then replaced by a in license built copy of the
605A-1 from Daimler-Benz.
The Fiat company was, among other things, part of a relatively small industry of aircraft manufacturers. At the beginning of the war, which they did not enter until 1940, Italy still had to make do with outdated biplanes. After all,
air sovereignty over the Mediterranean was achieved between 1940 and 1943 and maintained for a while.
But this aircraft, introduced by Fiat in 1943, was not yet involved in this. For Italy, the Second World War was essentially over at this point. Mussolini was arrested and the people in any case were tired of the war. Italian
soldiers mostly surrendered against the British and Americans approaching from the south.
But actually they were still allied with the Germans and they naturally resented the Italians' shift towards the Allies. They occupied what was left from the north, reinstated Mussolini in this part of Italy and defended Italy with an
iron hand.
The Italians suffered from the Second World War until 1945. Fiat had more or less voluntarily supplied weapons before 1943, but was then forced to compulsory service when the Germans came. The acts of sabotage also
began. At least the south of Italy was spared from fighting.
No, Italy had no luck in waging wars under Mussolini in the Second World War. For example, they wanted to become a serious colonial power in Northeast Africa and in the end found themselves without colonies. On the
contrary, there was a widespread opinion that the Italians' cries for help had made Rommel's adventure war in Africa necessary and thus weakened the Germans' other fronts.
But Rommel's campaign didn't end well either. At the end of World War II, Italy received almost nothing of what the Allies had supposedly promised when they switched sides, and Mussolini met a terrible end.
| Perhaps because of the whole situation at the end of the war, Agnelli died in 1945. |
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