Balbo, Italo (1869-1940). Italian fascist leader, Governor of Libya and aviator. Minister of aviation (1929-1933), he developed aviation in Italy and led several mass flights, most notably from Rome to Rio de Janiero and from Rome to Chicago. One of the four leaders of the March on Rome (1922), which brought Mussolini to power, he remained the only serious threat to Mussolini until his untimely death. Shot down in 1940 at Tobruk by an Italian anti-aircraft battery that was unable to identify his plane.

"..On 28 June 1940, while attempting to land at the Italian airfield in Tobruk a few minutes after a British air attack, Balbo and his crew were shot down by Italian gunners and killed. The most accredited version, based on the report by the eyewitness General Porro, claim that the old cruiser San Giorgio, used as a floating anti-aircraft battery, started firing on his Savoia-Marchetti SM.79 airplane (bearing the civil registration "I-MANU" in honor of his wife, Donna Manu), followed by the airport's anti-aircraft guns. It is still not clear which of them shot him down. Some of Balbo's closest friends and his family believed that it was an assassination on Mussolini's orders, and these voices have lingered for a long time as a sort of un-documented historical gossip, but extensive researches about the incident have conclusively debunked this theory. Balbo's plane was simply mis-identified as an enemy target, as Balbo's airplane was flying low and coming in against the sun after an attack by British Bristol Blenheims. Poor fire discipline by the anti-aircraft defences did the rest.."