Istrana Air Battle (1917)

rammjaeger · 27 March 2006, 09:12 AM

I was surprised to find the following message some days ago in my private message box but I assume this message was intended to start a thread here. At least it clarifies something:

"Istrana Air Battle (1917)

WWI German losses over Istrana.

Hi. This is my first message and log in.
I live in Treviso Provence, Italy, in Paese,
a little country near (less than 5 km) Istrana,
now a military base as in 1917.
I 've read about some locations related to
german planes shot down. I think the correct
spellig is Montebelluna and not Monte Belluno.
Belluno is another town, near the Alpi Mountains,
about 50 miles nortway of Istrana.
I' m not sure of the correct period but during
WWI there were other airstrips, active between
a few miles from Istrana, such as San Bernardino' s
Airfield (Quinto di Treviso area) and San Luca di
Padernello (Paese area, the location where I
actually live).
Best regards from
Bruno
Paese (TV)
Italy

mossie · 27 March 2006, 12:21 PM

I've started to do some research on the Italian Front and this note you've recieved is most interesting. One thing that has changed is the names given to locations, especially with the transfer of regions to Italy and the formation of new countries along the eastern Adratic.

Once I've collated some data I'll post what I have for discussion and corection.

duedicoppe · 28 March 2006, 11:16 AM

After ten years of study, I have still some problems in findings some little hamlets in the Isonzo area.

Mossie, I would be very happy to be in touch with you about WWI on the Italian front, so, if you want, you can write me at
pavarri@tiscali.it

Tomorrow I will go to Lugo di Romagna for the exhibition in the Baracca Museum, but I will come back on April 9th.

All the best
Paolo

To find the places through the changes made by History is one if the harder task, when you study the war on the Italian front. I spent

mossie · 31 March 2006, 12:19 PM

I've sent you an e-mail, duedicoppe, thanks.

Graeme · 1 April 2006, 01:31 AM

The same problem is encountered in respect of operations in the Baltic and in Russia, some place names having changed several times in the last 90 years. There's a note in The Camel File (page 249) showing the Italian place names given in reports and the modern equivalents.

Graeme

VictoriaNobis · 7 April 2006, 08:09 AM

Yes, Bruno said good things.
I have noticed the missunderstanding between Monte Belluno and Montebelluna, too, but I thought it was not so important.

I've to say more, that Montebelluna is in border line with Istrana, Trevignano and Povegliano (where the german planes crashed that day) and the Istrana airport is on the north side of the town, on the border with Travignano and Montebelluna.

As duedicoppe knows very well, sometime handwritten reports are almost impossible to understand, so there are a lot of missunderstanding in place names in this war.
For example Szkomigo (where a british plane was shot down), in reality is Scomigo, near the San Giacomo di Veglia airfield or
San Biagio di Callalta not San Biaggio
Santandrà (Povegliano) not San Andre di Treviso (it's very near to Treviso, but it's part of Povegliano town)
Monastier not Monistier di Treviso
San Fior or Godega di Sant'Urbano or Castello di Godego not San Godego (there where german airfields in San Fior and Godega di Sant'Urbano, very close each other).
and so far

Here you will find maps of the area (in italian)
http://turismo.provincia.treviso.it/...uerra/pag6.htm

There is another map, very detailed, but I can't find it any more on provincia di Treviso site. I have downloaded it and just when I'll found I will post it.
If you need to know about places of the Piave area you can contact me.

VictoriaNobis · 7 April 2006, 03:03 PM

I found the detailed map and I posted in a ftp site. You can find it
http://digilander.libero.it/wishyou95/75Kplot_GrandeGuerra.zip

ocio, it's a 4 mb file in pdf format.

In this map the San Fior Airfield it's missing (don't ask me why), but you can clearly see it on this photo
http://www.flieger-album.de/fotos/1917-1918/Album%2015%20-%20Bei%20der%20Jasta%20I%20[1917-18]/slides/Luftaufnahme%20St.%20Fior.htm

Godega Sant'Urbano airfields are on the right of the photo (are not visible, but they are about 1 km on the side).
San Fior airfield was about 400 meters from the center of the village (meanly the church), at the side of the national road Pontebbana (principal connection between Venezia and Udine), actually in the site there residential buildings.

One more thing: all the photographs shown on www.fleger-album.de between november 1917 and febraury 1918 are taken on San Fior airfield (maybe a pair on Conegliano airfield).
In one photo, this one http://http://www.flieger-album.de/fotos/1917-1918/Album%2011%20[Nov1917-Feb1918]/slides/Dolle%20Umberto%20&%20Dolomiten%20[Februar%201918]%2001.htm in the center of the photo is visible the San Giacomo di Veglia Airfield. Hangars are visible and a two seater plane. But You need to have a bigger versione to see...

mossie · 11 April 2006, 02:47 PM

Graeme - "The Camel File (page 249)", to which source do you refer ? I assume it is a book of some description.

Could be yet another good starter.

Also I've yet to go over the CD set of "The Great War" as it has a number of references to locations as well.

Graeme · 11 April 2006, 03:53 PM

Mossie

The Camel File is one of the excellent Air-Britain publications co-authored by Sturtivant and Page.

Graeme