Alessandro Miglia

Disappearance

On 27 April 1939, Maj. Miglia disappeared while on a flight with fellow aviator . They had departed from Qasr bin Ghashir aboard a Savoia-Marchetti S.M.79 aircraft, bound for El-Maden, a location beyond Tobruk near the Egyptian border. The aircraft never reached its destination and is presumed to have crashed in the Libyan Desert due to a severe Ghibli storm. Despite search efforts by the Italian Air Force and Navy in Libya, in which Governor Italo Balbo himself participated, no wreckage or remains of the two pilots were ever found. The Villaggio Azzurro (Air Force residential village) at Bari Palese Airport was later named in memory of Alessandro Miglia. A cenotaph was erected in the cemetery of his hometown, Susa, in his honor.thumb

Honours Silver Medal of Military Valor Knight of the Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus Knight of the Colonial Order of the Star of Italy