In DAK there is a little rule (4.6f) regarding the Italian paras and whether they "dare" to use their defective parachutes before March '41, when the better (real?) German model arrives.
At right, downtown Sidi Barrani
Anyway, the Italian military history magazine Storia Militare, in its December issue, has a very interesting article on those "mad" paras. It is a little episode virtually unknown to the Italian official histories of WW2.
On 14 December '41, the Regia Aeronautica was obliged to leave some airfields hastily, menaced by the advancing CW columns. The airfield of Gambut was among them. The leaving RA men were so "fast" that many planes and ammo and petrol depots were left still intact.
The Italian HQ decided to remedy this problem and, with the CW troops in full advance, used the paras of the Tonini Rgt. They were at Tolemaide, near Benghazi, acting as an elite infantry reserve for 10th Army. On 16 December, the equivalent of an understrength battalion took off from Barce airfield and arrived at T5 airfield, near Tobruk. On 17 December, they took off for Gambut, at about 50 km distance. The paras were transported by SM.75s and SM.81s.
Over the objective, the planes began to launch the paras (they were using the Italian "parachutes"!). While they were descending, they were strafed by some Hurricanes of the RAF, losing some tens of wounded and dead. Strangely, it seems they didn't lost a single man because of the parachutes!
On the ground, they fought against negligible resistance and reoccupied the airfield. Meanwhile, a motorized column from the 69th Infantry Rgt (Sirte division) arrived at T5 airfield to reinforce the paras.
Having destroyed depots and planes, they returned on foot to Tobruck. They recovered the airfield money chest and captured a British major. During the march they encountered Marshal Graziani. He thanked them, promised some well-earned rewards that never came!
An officer from the 69th carried the recovered chest all the way to Tobruk, where he handed it over to an officer from the Supply Service (intendenza). Well, that officer found it laced 6 lire--which had to be made up by the last officer to have touched the chest. Our man, having recovered from the shock, threw 10 lire at the "brilliant" supply officer and went away in disgust.
One month later he was captured and spent 5 years in a POW camp in India.
I think it is interesting that, with the front collapsing, the Italian HQ mounted a successful, if very limited in scope, airborne operation.
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