Bari 1943: the second Pearl Harbor

Mattesini, Francesco: - "Francesco Mattesini, born in Arezzo on April 14th, 1936, resident in Rome since the summer of 1951, served in the 4th Army General Staff Department between February 1958 and July 1999. He is a studious and expert on air and sea warfare, a skilful and meticulous researcher, a member of the Society of Military History and of the Maritime and Naval Documentation Association, an active collaborator of the Giornale d'Italia for which he edited the column "Verità Storiche" (Historical Truths), he wrote, revealing many behind-the-scenes, articles of a political-military nature in newspapers and specialized press, and published, with private publishers, the volumes "La battaglia d'Inghilterra"; "Il giallo di Matapan"; "La battaglia aeronavale di mezzo agosto"; and with the co-author, only for the political part, Prof. Alberto Sanoni, "La partecipazione tedesca alla guerra aeronavale nel Mediterraneo", at the second edition, (2005), of which he oversaw all the research, operational, statistical and graphic part. In 2019 Mattesini published: "Luci e ombre degli aerosiluranti italiani Agosto 1940 - Settembre 1943; "La battaglia aeronavale di mezzo-agosto, Il concorso delle forze italo-tedesche all'operazione britannica "Pedestal. 10-15 August 1942"; Punta Stilo July 1940,80th Anniversary of the First Air-Naval Battle of History; Mussolini's Decision to Occupy Greece; and The Night of Taranto. Collaborator of the Historical Office of Aeronautics, for which he realized, "The technical operational directives of Superaereo", which include, in four volumes, the main documents expressed by the Operative Body of the Italian Air Force between April 1940 and September 1943, and the volume "Italian-German Air Activity in the Mediterranean. Il contributo del X Fliegerkorps", in its second edition (2003), revised and expanded. For the Historical Office of the Navy, after having received the assignment to carry out a strict and precise historical revision of the books published in the years 1950-1980, Mattesini published "La battaglia di Punta Stilo, "Betasom. La guerra negli oceani" (both works integrated with new elements in the second edition), "La battaglia di Capo Teulada", "L'operazione Gaudo e lo scontro notturno di Capo Matapan", "La Marina e l'8 settembre", in two Tomi, and the first four volumes of the series "Corrispondenza e direttive tecnico-operative di Supermarina", which cover the period 1939-1941. Delivered for printing the third volume, in four volumes, but not yet printed by USMM. Also for the Historical Office of the Navy, Mattesini compiled, for internal use, important statistics on Allied naval casualties in World War II, partly published in installments in the Archive Bulletin of the Historical Office of the Navy, of which he was a regular contributor, with the production of sixty large essays, many of which are particularly important and exhaustive."