[3] The Nieuport 11 single-seat fighter with Lewis guns entered service in April 1916, and on 7 April, flying this new fighter, Baracca scored his first victory, holing the fuel tank of an Austrian Hansa-Brandenburg C.I having received forty-five hits, was forced to land and the crew, composed of Sergeant Adolf Ott and Lieutenant Observer Franz Lenarcic (who later died of the wounds) of Flik 19, was taken prisoner.This was also Italy's first aerial victory in the war.

That day Baracca achieved his victory in the late morning at Tolmezzo with 30 machine gun shots against the Brandenburg C.I of the Flik 16 of the observer Kálmán Sarközy who was wounded and prisoner and Fritz Fuchs, who did not survive the duel.

C.1 with observer Lieutenant Wilhelm Siemienski of Flik 35 who, after hitting the tank of Corporal Anselmo Caselli's Nieuport 11 who returns in emergency, while the reconnaissance plane with the two wounded crew members manages to make a crash landing by hitting a tree and ruining its wings in the meadows near Remanzacco after a battle over the sky of Udine attended by Vittorio Emanuele III of Savoy who the next day went to the camp to congratulate the pilots.On 26 April Baracca shot down the Br.

[6] On 1 May, during a reconnaissance mission over Monfalcone, piloting the Hansa-Brandenburg C.I 229.08 of Flik 12, Frank Linke-Crawford had the opportunity to clash with Baracca's SPAD S.VII: the two dueled for a long time, in a very hard fight that developed from 4,000 meters to low altitude.

C.1 of ace Julius Busa and observer Hermann Grössler of Fluggeschwader 1 (FlG I) on Mount Korada.On 20 May, as part of the tenth Isonzo offensive, Baracca hit a Brandenburg reconnaissance aircraft of Flik 12 on Monte Santo in Gorizia with incendiary bullets that crashed at an altitude of 363 m of Plava, a few meters from the Italian trenches.

Ruffo di Calabria burst out of a cloud firing in a head-on pass at an enemy airplane, and barely missed Baracca.

That night he wrote: "I had my SPAD shot up and its longeron broken into pieces by enemy machine gun fire in an aerial dogfight."

[11] A dedicated fighter pilot, Baracca found life away from the front unbearable and remained as much as possible with the 91st Squadriglia, even after being promoted to Maggiore in November 1917.

[citation needed] Baracca remained a modest, sensitive man conscious of his duty and compassionate to both his squadron comrades and to his defeated enemies.

He was not long back before he found himself in a situation similar to the previous late October: his squadron was forced to withdraw by enemy advances on 27 April.

[12] Baracca saw little action in 1918, but he added more victories, for a total of 34, before failing to return from a strafing mission on the Montello (hill) area on 19 June.

In the 06:30 troop support mission, Baracca and rookie pilot Tenente Franco Osnago were hit by ground fire and split from one another.

[14] Some days later, on 24 June, after an Austro-Hungarian retreat, Baracca's remains were recovered from where they lay, four meters from the burnt remnants of his Spad VII.

Osnago, Ferruccio Ranza, and a journalist named Garinei retrieved his body for the large funeral that was held in his home town of Lugo.

[citation needed] Baracca's total of 34 victory claims can largely be verified from known Austro-Hungarian losses and surviving military records, establishing the Italian as one of the highest-scoring Allied pilots during the conflict.

In the 1920s, a SPAD VII once flown by Baracca in December 1917 was presented for display, which was subsequently restored by GVAS (the Italian aeronautical preservation society).

The airport of Bolzano, a city in the region of Trentino-Alto Adige,[18] the Roma-Centocelle Italian Air Force base, and the Lugo di Romagna airfield are all named after Baracca.

[citation needed] A huge monument to his memory dominates the main square of his home town at Lugo di Romagna.

[citation needed] In later years, Baracca's mother presented his prancing stallion emblem, the Cavallino Rampante, to Enzo Ferrari.