[2] Early in World War II, he was killed by friendly fire when his plane was shot down over Tobruk by Italian anti-aircraft guns who misidentified it.

Once Italy entered the war in 1915, Balbo joined the Italian Royal Army (Regio Esercito) as an officer candidate and served with the Alpini mountain infantry.

At the end of the war, Balbo had earned one bronze and two silver medals for military valour and reached the rank of Captain (Capitano) due to courage under fire.

His final thesis was written on "the economic and social thought of Giuseppe Mazzini", and he researched under the supervision of the patriotic historian Niccolò Rodolico.

Subsequently, he received the degree of Orator in the Masonic Lodge" Girolamo Savonarola" in Ferrara,[5] joined by various other party officials.

[6] He left the lodge on 18 February 1923,[7] just three days before the vote of the Grand Council of Fascism which forbade fascists to be members of the Freemasonry.

Balbo had become one of the Ras, adopted from an Ethiopian title somewhat equivalent to a duke, of the Fascist hierarchy by 1922, establishing his local leadership in the party.

He went through an intensive course of flying instruction and began building the Italian Royal Air Force (Regia Aeronautica Italiana).

The first was the 1930 flight of twelve Savoia-Marchetti S.55 flying boats from Orbetello Seaplane Base, Italy to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil between 17 December 1930 and 15 January 1931.

The flight had eight legs: Orbetello – Amsterdam – Derry – Reykjavík – Cartwright – Shediac – Montreal – Lake Michigan near Burnham Park, Chicago – New York City.

The Newfoundland Post Office overprinted one of their 75-cent airmail stamps, that had been issued just two months previously, for the event:[13] General Balbo Flight, Labrador, The Land of Gold.

[16] During Balbo's stay in the United States, President Franklin Roosevelt invited him to lunch and presented him with the Distinguished Flying Cross.

[20] Back home in Italy, he was promoted to the newly created rank of Marshal of the Air Force (Maresciallo dell'Aria).

The idea was that the army would become an expeditionary force that could rapidly deploy by sea or train to Italy's borders (including Libya).

Mussolini looked to the flamboyant Air Marshal to be the condottiero of Italian ambition and extend Italy's new horizons in Africa.

Balbo's task was to assert Italy's rights in the indeterminate zones leading to Lake Chad from Tummo in the west and from Kufra in the east towards the Sudan.

By securing the "Tibesti-Borku strip" and the "Sarra Triangle", Italy would be in a good position to demand further territorial concessions in Africa from France and Britain.

Being appointed Governor-General of Libya was an effective exile from politics in Rome where Mussolini considered him a threat,[2] both for his fame and, more importantly, because of his close relationship with the possibly anti-fascist Crown Prince Umberto.

Balbo reasoned that, should Britain choose to close the Suez Canal, Italian troop transports would be prevented from reaching Eritrea and Somalia.

Balbo may have received intelligence concerning the feasibility of advancing into Egypt and Sudan from the famous desert researcher László Almásy.

In the end, Mussolini rejected Balbo's over-ambitious plan to attack Egypt and Sudan and London learned about his deployments in Libya from Rome.

For Balbo, the agreement meant the immediate loss of 10,000 Italian troops; it was characterised by renewed promises of undertakings that Mussolini had previously broken and he could easily break again.

In 1938 and 1939, Balbo himself made a number of flights from Libya across the Sudan to Italian East Africa ('Africa Orientale Italiana', or AOI).

When informed of Italy's formal alliance with Nazi Germany, Balbo exclaimed: "You will all wind up shining the shoes of the Germans!

While he had expressed many legitimate concerns to Mussolini and to Marshal Pietro Badoglio, the Chief-of-Staff in Rome, Balbo still planned to invade Egypt as early as 17 July 1940.

Italian anti-aircraft batteries defending the airfield misidentified the aircraft as British, opening fire upon it as it attempted a landing.

[31][32][33][34] Instead, it is generally accepted that Balbo's aircraft was simply misidentified as an enemy target,[2] as it was flying low and coming in against the sun, in addition to the fact of its arrival shortly after an aerial attack by British Bristol Blenheims.

[35] Upon hearing of the death of Balbo, the Commander-in-Chief of the RAF Middle East Command ordered an aircraft dispatched to fly over the Italian airfield to drop a wreath, with the following note of condolence: The British Royal Air Force expresses its sympathy in the death of General Balbo – a great leader and gallant aviator, personally known to me, whom fate has placed on the other side.