Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-dh8gc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-17T19:15:04.390Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Francesco De Pinedo and Ernesto Campanelli's record-breaking flight to Australia – perception, recognition and legacy: an account in the Australian Press

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 January 2021

Alberto Cauli Open the ORCID record for Alberto Cauli [Opens in a new window]
Alberto Cauli*
Affiliation:
The University of Auckland – New Zealand
*
E-mail: acau017@aucklanduni.ac.nz
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The year 2020 marked the 95th anniversary of Francesco De Pinedo and Ernesto Campanelli's record-breaking flight of 55,000 km, from Italy to Australia, Japan and back, in a seaplane named Gennariello. Their achievement was lauded worldwide, especially in Australia, where the press reported on it intensively. This paper reconstructs the story of the flight by analysing the Australian press accounts and De Pinedo's diary, to understand how the Australian public perceived the event. It investigates the aviators’ arrival in Perth, Adelaide and Melbourne, where their popularity was greatest and where the local Italian communities enthusiastically welcomed them. The analysis shows that the flight engendered increased public interest and paid dividends in terms of image for the commercial companies involved, while fascism exploited it to display its progress in aviation. The paper concludes by exploring the legacy of the endeavour in modern Italy and Australia, emphasising the differences between the countries.

Keywords

aviationDe Pinedo–CampanelliseaplanesAustralia
Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Navigation , Volume 74 , Issue 2 , March 2021 , pp. 328 - 342
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Navigation 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

‘Airman's long flight. De Pinedo due at Broome to-day’. 1925. The Sunday Times, 31 May: 1.Google Scholar
‘Australia's welcome. Appreciation by senators’. 1925. The Argus, 15 June: 11.Google Scholar
Brose, E. D. (1987). Generic Fascism revisited: attitudes toward technology in Germany and Italy, 1919–1945. German Studies Review, 10(2), 273–297.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Canali, M. (2015). Il delitto Matteotti. Bologna: Il Mulino.Google Scholar
Cauli, A. (2008). Ernesto Campanelli. Vita e Imprese di un Trasvolatore. Sassari: Delfino Editore.Google Scholar
‘Daring Italian Airmen. 15,000 miles flight completed’. 1925 The Advertiser Adelaide, 9 June: 13.Google Scholar
‘De Pinedo at Broome. Successful flight and warm welcome’. 1925. The Daily Telegraph, 1 June: 8.Google Scholar
De Pinedo, F. (1926). Un Volo di 55.000 Chilometri. Milano: Mondadori.Google Scholar
Ferrante, O. (2005). Francesco De Pinedo. In volo su tre oceani. Milano: Mursia, 157–158.Google Scholar
Gentile, E. (2003). The Struggle for Modernity. Nationalism, Futurism, and Fascism. Westport, CT: Praeger Publisher.Google Scholar
Grassia, E. (2016). L’8 settembre 1943 e la Regia ‘fascistissima’ Aeronautica. Diacronie. Studi di Storia Contemporanea, 25(1), 2–19.Google Scholar
Great cheering greets Pinedo as he lands. 1925. The Herald, 9 June: 5.Google Scholar
‘Great flight Italy to Australia. Major De Pinedo arrival at Broome’. 1925. Sydney Morning Herald, 1 June: 10.Google Scholar
Heller, M. (2010). Corporate brand building Shell-Mex Ltd. in the interwar period. In: da Silva Lopes, T. and Duguid, P. (eds.). Trademarks, Brands, and Competitiveness, New York: Routledge, 194–214.Google Scholar
‘Italian Airmen arrive. Brilliant scene at Outer Harbor’. 1925. The News Adelaide, 8 June: 1.Google Scholar
‘Italian airmen arrive. Welcomed at St. Kilda. Large crowd gathers’. 1925. The Argus, 10 June: 19.Google Scholar
‘Italian airmen nearing Melbourne on Shell’. 1925. The Argus, 6 June: 31.Google Scholar
‘Italian Airmen nearing Melbourne on Shell. De Pinedo due at St. Kilda Monday afternoon’. 1925. The Age, 6 June: 16.Google Scholar
‘Italian Airmen. Reception by compatriots’. 1925. The Argus, 29 June: 11 ‘Italian birdman reaches Perth safely’. 1925. The Daily News, 3 June: 1.Google Scholar
‘Italy to Australia. De Pinedo's flight. Mussolini's message’. 1925. The Western Mail, 4 June:14 ‘Le parole del Capo del Governo’. 1925. Corriere della Sera, 8 November: 1.Google Scholar
Lee, C. and Kennedy, C. (2020). Race, technological modernity, and the Italo-Australian condition: Francesco De Pinedo's 1925 flight from Europe to Australia. Modern Italy, 25(3), 243–259.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lumbers, E. (1956). Centenary History of Port Adelaide 1856-1956. Keswick: The Allen Press. ‘Major De Pinedo's air feat’. 1925. Sydney Morning Herald, 15 June: 8.Google Scholar
‘Melbourne's welcome to the intrepid Italian airmen’. (1925). The Herald, 9 June: 5 Mussolini, Benito. 1934. Scritti e Discorsi dal 1925 al 1926. Milano: Hoepli.Google Scholar
‘One explorer to another. Marchese De Pinedo arrives’. 1925. The Herald, 9 June: 14.Google Scholar
‘Pinedo's big flight. Plucky Italian airman and his great exploit’. 1925. The Mirror, 30 May: 2.Google Scholar
‘Rome to Australia by seaplane’. 1925. The Adelaide Chronicle, 25 April: 52.Google Scholar
The Home. Vol. 6, No. 4 (1 August 1925): 62-64CrossRefGoogle Scholar
‘Third flight to Australia succeeds on Shell’. 1925. The Daily Telegraph, 1 June: 14.Google Scholar
Tosco, A. (2002). The Italo-Australian Press: Media and Mass Communication in the Emigration World 1900-1940 Ph.D. thesis. Griffith University.Google Scholar
‘Welcome! The Marchese Di Pinedo arrives behind a Lorraine-Dietrich engine’. . 1925. The Sun News-Pictorial, 10 June: 9.Google Scholar
Wohl, R. (2005). The Spectacle of Flight: Aviation and the Western Imagination 1920–1950. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar