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Enemy Air-Borne Forces, Military Intelligence Service, Special Series No. 7, December 2, 1942
[DISCLAIMER: The following text is taken from the wartime U.S. War Department publication. As with all wartime intelligence information, data may be incomplete or inaccurate. No attempt has been made to update or correct the text. Any views or opinions expressed do not necessarily represent those of the website.]

48. ITALIAN AIR-BORNE EXPERIENCE IN WORLD WAR II

During the fighting with the British in Italian East Africa, Ca-133 and S-79 aircraft were used to some extent for carrying troops. During the Greco-Italian campaign, the Ala Littoria (the Italian Civil Air Line) transported numerous troops to Albania. The traffic was so heavy that part had to be carried in Ju-52's loaned by the Germans. The maximum number of men that the Italian civil aircraft could have carried at any one time in 1941, had all facilities been used, is said to have been only 2,500.1 The number and individual passenger-carrying capacity of Italian military aircraft, mostly bombers, which might have been pressed into supplemental service are as follows:

   Type      Number  
  available  
  (early 1941)  		   Capacity  
  (exclusive  
  of crew)  
S-81  48  12-15 
S-79  373  12-15 
S-82  15  25-30 
Br-20  116  8 
Cz-1107  56  15 
Ca-133  23  4 
Cant Z-506  57  12 

1 On June 10, 1941, Mussolini reported in a speech that in the Italian air activity against Greece from October 28, 1940, to April 27, 1941, Italian planes had flown 7,102 hours and transported to Albania 30,851 men and 3,016 tons of equipment, and that German transport planes from Italian airports had flown 13,312 hours, carrying 39,816 men and 2,923 tons of equipment.
 

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