Antonio Locatelli

Bergamo, 1895-Lekemti, 1936

World War I: Fighters

An industrial engineer (1913), in 1915 he enlists and is assigned to the Aviators’ Battalion where he obtains his pilot’s licence and is promoted to lieutenant (1916). In the 1915-1918 conflict, he carries out 523 war missions, including the one over the Zeppelin shipyards at Friedrichshafen and over Zagreb. With the 87th Squadrilla ‘La Serenissima’, on 9 August 1918 he flies over Vienna. In September 1918, he falls in enemy hands, an experience he later narrates in The Wings of the Prisoner. In the post-war period he carries out a few transoceanic flights (Chile-Argentina, northern Atlantic) and joins the Fascist movement, participating in the March on Rome. As a volunteer in the Italo-Ethiopian war, he dies on 27 June 1936. Three Gold Medals and three Silver Medals of Military Valor.

Bibliographical references
Locatelli, Antonio | 1924 Le ali del prigioniero. Milano: Treves.

Chiarini, Roberto | 2011 Una vita in volo: Antonio Locatelli (1895-1936). Bergamo: Fondazione per la storia economica e sociale di Bergamo.