WWI Italian ace might be from Ecuador?

Hi:

I've just come across some wacky information that needs to be confirmed. I checked on some sites the name Cosimo Rennella, who is an Italian WWI ace with 7 kills, and it appears under a slightly different name (Cosme Rennella, actually), to be a pilot born in Guayaquil (Ecuador) and having fought in WWI, and becoming an ace....

Here are the links:

Cosme Rennella (Official Home Page for the Armed Forces of Ecuador, the Air Force Section)
http://www.fuerzasarmadasecuador.org...1972faerea.htm

Cosme Renella (Unofficial page of the Ecuadorian Air Force, FAE in Spanish)
http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/...E-HISTORIA.htm

Cosme Renella (Translation of the page above)
http://translator.go.com/?input_type...E-HISTORIA.htm

According to " Above the War Fronts " Cosimo Rennella was born in Secondigliano, Naples province, on 15 February 1890 and moved to Guayaquil, Ecuador two years later when his family emigrated. He was known as 'Cosme' in his new country. He learned to fly in Italy, returned to south America, and then went back to Italy in 1915 to volunteer to fly in the Air Service.

Hope this helps,

Vince

Makes sense to me. There was a lot of migration from Italy to South America at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries.

[Barrett]

After the Falklands/Malvinas war in '82 a British Navy pilot said that his "mob" never figured the SoLant op would be the pushover that some in the UK envisioned. He said, "We asked ourselves, who are the Argies? Well, a lot of them are of Italian extraction--grand prix drivers, polo players. Give them their due."
Meanwhile, back in Wash. DC the president and VP of the military attache's tennis club were an Argie and a Brit (I forget which was which). They decided to continue their scheduled matches since events in the South Atlantic had no bearing on their club!
Incidentally, though the Super Etendard/Exocet combination got most of the ink, the Argentine Navy A-4 Skyhawks did most of the damage. The AF Skyhawk units, not being trained for sea strike, sustained heavy losses without compensating results. An RN chap told me years later that if a half-dozen more Argie bombs had fuzed, the war would have been lost because Britain could not have sustained the shipping losses.

I just got this comment from a guy, Gary Kuhn,
ggkuhn@earthlink.net, so let's see his side of the story:

------Original Message------
From: "gary kuhn"
To: estebanrivera@email.com
Sent: January 3, 2001 12:13:31 PM GMT
Subject: Cosme Rennella


Cosme Rennella Barbatto was the first Ecuadorian aviator, sent by the Club Guayas de Tiro to Turin, Italy en el año 1911 para aprender volar. En enero 1913 regresaba a Guayaquil y meses mas tarde llegaba su monoplano Nieuport "Patria No. 1". Con la guerra, Rennella regresaba a la italia. Con la 78 Squadriglia Aeroplani "entre 24 de mayo de 1915 y el 4 de noviembre de 1918, realizo 250 incursiones sobre territorio enemigo y participo en 152 combates aereos con 7 aviones derribados" (Fuerza Aerea Ecuatoriana; Historia Ilustrada, 1910-1999, pagina 20).
Retornia al Ecuador en 1924. Mientras tanto hizo arreglas para que los italianos fueron los primeros maestros en el ecuador y ecuatorianos esrudiaban en la italia. Desgraciamente, por inestabilidad politica y problemas economicas (caida de ingresos por exportacion de cacao con la enfermedad "witchbroom" )no continuo este progreso.
Bienvenidos paisa; necessitamos aportes de su pais. Debe preguntar (y contestar) por Discussion Board (y no por el metodo para esta pregunta) para contactar a todos (mas que cuatro personas de la mesa directiva).

Gary Kuhn
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

In other words, he admits that Rennella was from Ecuador, sent to Italy to learn flying, flew with the 78 Squadriglia Aeroplani between May 24, 1915 and November 4, 1918, flew 250 sorties, and participated in some 152 combat missions, plus 7 air-to-air kills, according to "Ecuadorian Air Force, Pictorical History, 1910-1999, p. 20 "

So what do we do?

Esteban