Adriano Visconti

Major Adriano Visconti di Lampugnano (11 November 1915 – 29 April 1945) was one of Italy's top flying aces of the Second World War, during which he shot down between 10 and 26 enemy aircraft.

In 1939 he was commissioned as a Sub-Lieutenant Pilot (Sottotenente Pilota) and posted to the Breda 65 equipped 159ª Squadriglia, 12º Gruppo 50º Stormo, a ground attack unit based at Tobruk.

For this double air victory, Visconti was awarded a Medaglia d'Argento al Valor Militare (Silver Medal of Military valour).

He was credited with his first "kill" with the ANR on 3 January 1944, when, flying a C.205, he downed a P-38 Lightning South of the Piedmontese city of Cuneo.

Most of his victories were while flying the Macchi 205V; the last, a P-47 over Lake Garda, on 14 March 1945, was in a Bf 109 G10 designated "3-4" but in reality was only a "claim", since the pilot he met in the head-on dogfight wasn't actually shot down.

In fact, on 14 March 1945 Adriano Visconti was shot down, by the USAAF pilot, 2nd/Lt Charles Clark Eddy Jr. in a P-47 he named "Chickenbones" of 346th FS, 350th FG.

On April 29, 1945, Visconti surrendered to communist partisans near Malpensa airfield, Milan, only after he was assured that none of the air or ground personnel of his unit would be killed in retaliatory attacks.

In May 1945, a group of fellow aviators and friends, including Giuseppe Robetto, Ugo Diappi, Luigi Botto and Irma Rachelli, arranged for the bodies to be moved to Cimitero Monumentale di Milano.

Breda Ba.65: Visconti started World War II as a ground-attack pilot.
A Bristol Blenheim bomber was the first "victim" of Visconti.
Aurelio Morandi, Adriano Visconti and Roberto Di Lollo, c. 1945 .
Monument to Adriano Visconti