On 25 September, the bombers arrived at their airfield in Melsbroek, Belgium after an eventful journey in which several planes force landed or even crashed due to malfunctions and poor weather.

As late as 4 November, a Time magazine article only indicated that there was a possibility that an Italian air force unit might be sent to participate in the Battle of Britain.

However, the number of heavy AA guns in the GDA had dwindled to eight by September 1940 as they had been redeployed to guard the RAF's vital fighter airfields.

In response to a raid on several northern Italian cities, fifteen BR.20s with a strong CR.42 fighter escort bombed Ramsgate by day.

The G.50 mission was aborted due to bad weather that caused too much fuel consumption and the Fiat monoplanes had to go, leaving only the CR.42 as escort.

However, Hurricanes from several units, belonging to 257, 46, and 42[nb 1] Squadrons intercepted the aircraft and destroyed three bombers and two fighters, while another was lost to mechanical fault or navigation error, the pilot (Salvatori) was captured.

One of the Fiats (MM.5701) was repaired by the British and subsequently evaluated by Eric Brown; this is one of the best conserved CR.42s, and it is owned by a UK museum (Hendon).

[8] Between October 1940 and January 1941 the CAI fighters flew 454 offensive and 480 defensive sorties (including 113 bomber escort).

[3] Although the main fighter used by the Corpo Aereo Italiano was a biplane, which, in purely technical terms, would be outclassed by more modern monoplanes, this was not the case all the time.

I attacked two or three more and fired short bursts, in each case the enemy aircraft half-rolled very tightly and easily and completely out-turned me.

Italian aircraft received many hits which did no material damage and one pilot even found that his parachute pack had stopped a bullet.