229-608: 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 Operation Pedestal ( Italian : Battaglia di Mezzo Agosto , Battle of mid-August), known in Malta as Il-Konvoj ta' Santa Marija ( Santa Maria Convoy ), was a British operation to carry supplies to the island of Malta in August 1942, during the Second World War . Malta was a base from which British ships, submarines and aircraft attacked Axis convoys to Libya , during
458-580: A Cant Z1007b11 . The wave was escorted by two of the five G.50 fighters of the 24° Gruppo CT which managed to find the formation. Rafaelli in the Z.1007 guiding the bomb by radio. The radio failed and the SM.79 flew straight on, instead of diving onto an aircraft carrier as intended and crashed into Mount Khenchela in Algeria. The Sezione Speciale was mistaken for a Hurricane formation and both hit Victorious , one bomb killing six sailors and wounding two,
687-466: A Ju 88 began to shadow the convoy at 20,000–24,000 ft (6,100–7,300 m) and continued throughout the day. At noon, the convoy was about 75 nmi (139 km; 86 mi) south of Majorca, sailing due east on a zigzag course. Furious conducted the flying off between 12:30 and 15:15 of 38 Spitfires for the 555 to 584 nmi (1,028 to 1,082 km; 639 to 672 mi) journey to Malta and then turned round with her escorts for Gibraltar (37 of
916-679: A Private Finance Initiative with newly purchased Sikorsky S-92 and AgustaWestland AW189 aircraft. The new contract means that all UK SAR coverage is now provided by Bristow aircraft. In 2018, the RAF's vision of a future constellation of imagery satellites was initiated through the launch of the Carbonite-2 technology demonstrator. The 100 kg Carbonite-2 uses commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components to deliver high-quality imagery and 3D video footage from space. The Royal Air Force celebrated its 100th anniversary on 1 April 2018. It marked
1145-552: A Wellington bomber that dropped flares and sent messages in clear, supposedly guiding a fictitious B-24 Liberator force, to bluff the Italian ships away from the convoy. ( Supermarina had cancelled the operation before the British signals were received, because of a lack of air cover.) At 00:20, the British discovered from Enigma that Italian intelligence had sighted four British cruisers and ten destroyers and thought that part of
1374-637: A wing commander and, for a fast-jet squadron, have an complement of around twelve aircraft. Independent flights are so designated because they are explicitly smaller in size than a squadron. Many independent flights are, or have been, front-line flying units. For example, No. 1435 Flight carries out air defence duties for the Falkland Islands , with four Eurofighter Typhoon fighters based at RAF Mount Pleasant . Support capabilities are provided by several specialist wings and other units. Command, control, and support for overseas operations
1603-598: A British crew. The convoy sailed from Britain on 3 August 1942 and passed through the Strait of Gibraltar into the Mediterranean on the night of 9/10 August. The Axis attempt to prevent the fifty ships of the convoy reaching Malta, using bombers , German E-boats , Italian MAS and MS boats, minefields and submarine ambushes, was the last sizeable Axis success in the Mediterranean. More than 500 Merchant and Royal Navy sailors and airmen were killed and only five of
1832-667: A SM.79 on reconnaissance but a Cant Z1007 maintained contact. Fliegerkorps II arranged to co-ordinate with the Italians but the operations were independent. I Gruppe , Sturzkampfgeschwader 3 (StG 3) had transferred from Trapani to Elmas and at 17:30 hrs, 20 Ju 87s with Bf 109 escorts took off. Italian Ju 87s of 102° Gruppo arrived in poor visibility but at 18:35 the clouds parted. The Italian formation had been detected by radar while 40 nmi (46 mi; 74 km) out and three Martlets, twelve Sea Hurricanes and three Fulmars were airborne but faced MC.202 and Bf 109 escorts,
2061-424: A convoy of two battleships, two carriers, two cruisers, fourteen destroyers and twelve merchantmen was on an easterly course, 55 nmi (102 km; 63 mi) north-north-east of Oran. By the afternoon of 10 August, Kesselring and Supermarina were aware that a convoy of forty to fifty ships, including possibly two carriers and nineteen freighters, was in the western Mediterranean, sailing on an easterly course at
2290-429: A daily intake of 1,690 calories and women and children received 1,500 calories. In August a mass slaughter of livestock began on the island to reduce the need for fodder imports and to convert grazing land for crop growing; the meat being supplied to the public through Victory Kitchens. Malta would be forced to surrender if fuel, food and ammunition were not delivered before September and Air Vice-Marshal Keith Park ,
2519-519: A fleet unit." The aircraft of the force performed dummy air attacks in the afternoon of 8 August, to exercise radar reporting, the fighter direction organisation and to give anti-aircraft gun crews aircraft recognition practice, followed by a fly past. In Operation Ascendant, Troilus and Orari , the two merchant ships that had survived the Harpoon fiasco in June, were to sail from Malta for Gibraltar, with
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#17327839196822748-460: A hole 23 ft × 26 ft (7.0 m × 7.9 m) in its side and starting a fire; the crew put out the fire and were soon able to make 7 kn (8.1 mph; 13 km/h). The torpedoing of HMS Nigeria and Cairo (eventually sunk by the British), the diversion of HMS Ashanti to become Burrough's new flagship and the detachment of four Hunt-class destroyers to stand by
2977-510: A huge number of civil servants and soldiers recruited from all over the country introduced many more words and idioms from their home languages— ciao is derived from the Venetian word s-cia[v]o ("slave", that is "your servant"), panettone comes from the Lombard word panetton , etc. Only 2.5% of Italy's population could speak the Italian standardized language properly when
3206-573: A joint special air reconnaissance of the western Mediterranean to be flown by Axis aircraft on 11 and 12 August, Axis aircraft based in Sicily and Sardinia, Italian submarines and German U-boats and Axis torpedo boats and minefields being used as successive barriers. The four barriers were to cause the convoy to disperse and be vulnerable to a force of cruisers and destroyers. Twenty-two torpedo-bombers, about one hundred and twenty-five dive-bombers with fighter escorts and forty medium bombers were to be used in
3435-471: A little over one million people in the United States speak Italian at home. Nevertheless, an Italian language media market does exist in the country. In Canada, Italian is the second most spoken non-official language when varieties of Chinese are not grouped together, with 375,645 claiming Italian as their mother tongue in 2016. Italian immigrants to South America have also brought a presence of
3664-657: A local vernacular. These dialects, as they are commonly referred to, evolved from Vulgar Latin over the course of centuries, unaffected by formal standards and teachings. They are not in any sense "dialects" of standard Italian, which itself started off as one of these local tongues, but sister languages of Italian. Mutual intelligibility with Italian varies widely, as it does with Romance languages in general. The Romance languages of Italy can differ greatly from Italian at all levels ( phonology , morphology , syntax , lexicon , pragmatics ) and are classified typologically as distinct languages. The standard Italian language has
3893-644: A minor role in the Korean War , with flying boats taking part. From 1953 to 1956 the RAF Avro Lincoln squadrons carried out anti- Mau Mau operations in Kenya using its base at RAF Eastleigh . The Suez Crisis in 1956 saw a large RAF role, with aircraft operating from RAF Akrotiri and RAF Nicosia on Cyprus and RAF Luqa and RAF Hal Far on Malta as part of Operation Musketeer . The RAF suffered its most recent loss to an enemy aircraft during
4122-658: A poetic and literary origin in the works of Tuscan writers of the 12th century, and, although the grammar and core lexicon are basically unchanged from those used in Florence in the 13th century, the modern standard of the language was largely shaped by relatively recent events. However, Romance vernacular as language spoken in the Italian Peninsula has a longer history. In fact, the earliest surviving texts that can definitely be called vernacular (as distinct from its predecessor Vulgar Latin) are legal formulae known as
4351-620: A quarter of Bomber Command's personnel were Canadian. Additionally, the Royal Australian Air Force represented around nine per cent of all RAF personnel who served in the European and Mediterranean theatres. During the Battle of Britain in 1940, the RAF defended the skies over Britain against the numerically superior German Luftwaffe . In what is perhaps the most prolonged and complicated air campaign in history,
4580-417: A renewed interest in linguistics in the 16th century, sparked a debate that raged throughout Italy concerning the criteria that should govern the establishment of a modern Italian literary and spoken language. This discussion, known as questione della lingua (i.e., the problem of the language ), ran through the Italian culture until the end of the 19th century, often linked to the political debate on achieving
4809-512: A result. Starting in late medieval times in much of Europe and the Mediterranean, Latin was replaced as the primary commercial language by languages of Italy, especially Tuscan and Venetian. These varieties were consolidated during the Renaissance with the strength of Italy and the rise of humanism and the arts . Italy came to enjoy increasing artistic prestige within Europe. A mark of
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#17327839196825038-477: A seven-vowel system, consisting of /a, ɛ, e, i, ɔ, o, u/ , as well as 23 consonants. Compared with most other Romance languages, Italian phonology is conservative, preserving many words nearly unchanged from Vulgar Latin . Some examples: Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force ( RAF ) is the air and space force of the United Kingdom , British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies . It
5267-594: A single Hawker Tempest F.6 in January 1949. Before Britain developed its own nuclear weapons , the RAF was provided with American nuclear weapons under Project E . However, following the development of its own arsenal, the British Government elected on 16 February 1960 to share the country's nuclear deterrent between the RAF and submarines of the Royal Navy, first deciding to concentrate solely on
5496-479: A single language is that they have evolved so that they are no longer mutually intelligible ; this diagnostic is effective if mutual intelligibility is minimal or absent (e.g. in Romance, Romanian and Portuguese), but it fails in cases such as Spanish-Portuguese or Spanish-Italian, as educated native speakers of either pairing can understand each other well if they choose to do so; however, the level of intelligibility
5725-468: A speed of 13 to 14 kn (24 to 26 km/h; 15 to 16 mph). The convoy was expected to be south of Majorca by 06:00 on 11 August and south of Sardinia by the same time on 12 August. Fliegerkorps II in the western Mediterranean was alerted and Fliegerkorps X was ordered to reconnoitre the eastern Mediterranean beyond the 25° E line of longitude after dawn on 11 August. Despite Axis submarines, three cruisers and twenty-six destroyers refuelled from
5954-556: A staging post, led to Axis air campaigns against the island in 1941 and 1942. By late July, the 80 fighters on the island averaged wastage of 17 per week and the remaining aviation fuel was only sufficient for the fighters, making it impractical to send more bombers and torpedo-bombers for offensive operations. Operation Julius , a plan to supply Malta by simultaneous convoys from Gibraltar in Operation Harpoon and from Alexandria by Operation Vigorous (12–15/16 June)
6183-626: A support enabler role. A Control and Reporting Centre (CRC) at RAF Boulmer is tasked with compiling a Recognised Air Picture of UK air space and providing tactical control of the Quick Reaction Alert Force . In order to achieve this Boulmer is supported by a network of eight Remote Radar Heads (RRHs) spread the length of the UK. The UK operates permanent military airfields (known as Permanent Joint Operating Bases) in four British Overseas Territories . These bases contribute to
6412-408: A synchronised attack. Priority was given to the destruction of aircraft carriers, to prevent them from intervening when Italian surface forces closed in on the remnants of the convoy. The Axis navies had nineteen submarines in the western Mediterranean; nine boats were to be stationed north of Algeria between longitudes 01° 40' E and 02° 40' E . Ten submarines were to wait between Fratelli Rocks and
6641-513: A united Italian state. Renaissance scholars divided into three main factions: A fourth faction claimed that the best Italian was the one that the papal court adopted, which was a mixture of the Tuscan and Roman dialects. Eventually, Bembo's ideas prevailed, and the foundation of the Accademia della Crusca in Florence (1582–1583), the official legislative body of the Italian language, led to
6870-490: A war that remained under low profile. The Konfrontasi against Indonesia in the early 1960s did see use of RAF aircraft, but due to a combination of deft diplomacy and selective ignoring of certain events by both sides, it never developed into a full-scale war. The RAF played a large role in the Aden Emergency between 1963 and 1967. Hawker Hunter FGA.9s based at RAF Khormaksar , Aden , were regularly called in by
7099-427: Is 89% with French, 87% with Catalan , 85% with Sardinian , 82% with Spanish, 80% with Portuguese , 78% with Ladin , 77% with Romanian . Estimates may differ according to sources. One study, analyzing the degree of differentiation of Romance languages in comparison to Latin (comparing phonology , inflection , discourse , syntax , vocabulary , and intonation ), estimated that distance between Italian and Latin
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7328-691: Is a Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire . Italian is the least divergent language from Latin , together with Sardinian (meaning that Italian and Sardinian are the most conservative Romance languages). Spoken by about 85 million people, including 67 million native speakers (2024), Italian is an official language in Italy , San Marino , Switzerland ( Ticino and
7557-999: Is also responsible for the RAF Medical Services, RAF Support Force, consisting of the RAF's engineering, logistics, intelligence, signals, musical and mountain rescue assets, RAF's Combat and Readiness Force, comprising the RAF Regiment , and the Air Security Force, comprising RAF Police . It oversees stations at RAF Benson and RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire, RAF Henlow in Bedfordshire, RAF Honington in Suffolk, RAF Odiham in Hampshire and RAF Northolt in West London. No. 11 Group
7786-759: Is also spoken by a minority in Monaco and France, especially in the southeastern part of the country. Italian was the official language in Savoy and in Nice until 1860, when they were both annexed by France under the Treaty of Turin , a development that triggered the " Niçard exodus ", or the emigration of a quarter of the Niçard Italians to Italy, and the Niçard Vespers . Giuseppe Garibaldi complained about
8015-501: Is at RAF High Wycombe co-located with Air Command. Groups are the subdivisions of operational commands and are responsible for certain types of capabilities or for operations in limited geographical areas. There are five groups subordinate to Air Command, of which four are functional and one is geographically focused: No. 1 Group is responsible for combat aircraft (comprising the Lightning Force and Typhoon Force) and
8244-725: Is defined as "the ability to project power from the air and space to influence the behaviour of people or the course of events". Today, the Royal Air Force maintains an operational fleet of various types of aircraft, described by the RAF as being "leading-edge" in terms of technology. This largely consists of fixed-wing aircraft, including those in the following roles: fighter and strike , airborne early warning and control , intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition, and reconnaissance (ISTAR), signals intelligence (SIGINT), maritime patrol, air-to-air refueling (AAR) and strategic & tactical transport . The majority of
8473-534: Is higher than that between Sardinian and Latin. In particular, its vowels are the second-closest to Latin after Sardinian . As in most Romance languages, stress is distinctive. Italian is the official language of Italy and San Marino and is spoken fluently by the majority of the countries' populations. Italian is the third most spoken language in Switzerland (after German and French; see Swiss Italian ), although its use there has moderately declined since
8702-460: Is markedly lower between Italian-Spanish, and considerably higher between the Iberian sister languages of Portuguese-Spanish. Speakers of this latter pair can communicate with one another with remarkable ease, each speaking to the other in his own native language without slang/jargon. Nevertheless, on the basis of accumulated differences in morphology, syntax, phonology, and to some extent lexicon, it
8931-504: Is neither a co-official nor a protected language in these countries. Some speakers of Italian are native bilinguals of both Italian (either in its standard form or regional varieties ) and a local language of Italy , most frequently the language spoken at home in their place of origin. Italian is a major language in Europe, being one of the official languages of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe and one of
9160-462: Is not difficult to identify that for the Romance varieties of Italy, the first extant written evidence of languages that can no longer be considered Latin comes from the ninth and tenth centuries C.E. These written sources demonstrate certain vernacular characteristics and sometimes explicitly mention the use of the vernacular in Italy. Full literary manifestations of the vernacular began to surface around
9389-427: Is of decisive importance. and that the attacks were to be directed against the British aircraft carriers and merchantmen. At 00:54, HMS Wolverine , part of the escort force for Furious , had been detached with four more destroyers for anti-submarine patrols after the loss of Eagle , detected a submarine at 4,900 yd (4,500 m), accelerated, obtained a visual contact at 700 yd (640 m) and rammed
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9618-814: Is part of the Ministry of Defence and body legally responsible for the defence of the United Kingdom and its overseas territories . The Chief of the Air Staff chairs the Air Force Board Standing Committee (AFBSC) which decides on the policy and actions required for the RAF to meet the requirements of the Defence Council and His Majesty's Government . The Chief of the Air Staff is supported by several other senior commanders: Administrative and operational command of
9847-657: Is responsible for integrating operations across the air , cyber and space domains whilst responding to new and evolving threats. It includes the RAF's Battlespace Management Force which controls the UK Air Surveillance and Control System (ASACS). The group oversees stations at RAF Boulmer in Northumberland, RAF Fylingdales in North Yorkshire and RAF Spadeadam in Cumbria. No. 22 Group
10076-731: Is responsible for the supply of qualified and skilled personnel to the RAF and provides flying and non-flying training to all three British armed services. It is the end-user of the UK Military Flying Training System which is provided by civilian contractor Ascent Flight Training . The group oversees stations at RAF College Cranwell in Lincolnshire, RAF Cosford and RAF Shawbury in Shropshire, RAF Halton in Buckinghamshire, MOD St Athan in
10305-648: Is the main working language of the Holy See , serving as the lingua franca (common language) in the Roman Catholic hierarchy as well as the official language of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta . Italian has a significant use in musical terminology and opera with numerous Italian words referring to music that have become international terms taken into various languages worldwide. Almost all native Italian words end with vowels , and
10534-517: Is typically provided through Expeditionary Air Wings (EAWs). Each wing is brought together as and when required and comprises the deployable elements of its home station as well as other support elements from throughout the RAF. Several Expeditionary Air Wings are based overseas: The RAF Schools consist of the squadrons and support apparatus that train new aircrew to join front-line squadrons. The schools separate individual streams, but group together units with similar responsibility or that operate
10763-549: Is used, and the town of Chipilo near Puebla, Mexico; each continues to use a derived form of Venetian dating back to the 19th century. Other examples are Cocoliche , an Italian–Spanish pidgin once spoken in Argentina and especially in Buenos Aires , and Lunfardo . The Rioplatense Spanish dialect of Argentina and Uruguay today has thus been heavily influenced by both standard Italian and Italian regional languages as
10992-531: The Luftwaffe anticipated a landing at Tripoli on 13 or 14 August. Fighter and dive-bomber reinforcements were sent from Sicily and Enigma intercepted a message from Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring , the commander in chief of the Luftwaffe , ordering that the Luftwaffe ... will operate with no other thought in mind than the destruction of the British convoy ... The destruction of this convoy
11221-1009: The Abwehr on 5 August convinced Kesselring that the Allies were preparing a big operation to supply Malta from the west, in conjunction with a simultaneous attack on Mersa Matruh in Egypt. Allied bombers from Malta were expected to attack Italian naval forces as Malta fighters covered the passage of a convoy through the Sicilian Narrows. The Germans also considered a threat to Crete when the convoy had reached Malta and Kesselring ordered increased readiness of Luftwaffe units in Sicily and Crete, aircraft being transferred from Crete to Sardinia and Sicily. Fliegerkorps II reduced operations to increase serviceability, prepared facilities at Elmas in Sardinia for reinforcements sent from Fliegerkorps X in
11450-484: The Fuciliere and a torpedo-boat, Ardito , to join the 3rd Cruiser Division, which had left Messina early with the cruisers Gorizia , Bolzano and six destroyers after receiving a signal from U-83 that four cruisers and ten destroyers (MG 3) were close to Crete. The Italian cruisers and destroyers rendezvoused 60 nmi (69 mi; 110 km) north of Ustica off Palermo at the west end of Sicily, some of
11679-509: The Il Globo (Australia) and the La gazzetta del Sud Africa (South Africa). Italian is widely taught in many schools around the world, but rarely as the first foreign language. In the 21st century, technology also allows for the continual spread of the Italian language, as people have new ways to learn how to speak, read, and write languages at their own pace and at any given time. For example,
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#173278391968211908-991: The La Voce del Popolo ( Croatia ), the Corriere d'Italia (Germany), the L'italoeuropeo (United Kingdom), the Passaparola ( Luxembourg ), the America Oggi (United States), the Corriere Canadese and the Corriere Italiano (Canada), the Il punto d'incontro (Mexico), the L'Italia del Popolo ( Argentina ), the Fanfulla (Brazil), the Gente d'Italia ( Uruguay ), the La Voce d'Italia ( Venezuela ),
12137-420: The 1948 Arab–Israeli War : during the withdrawal of the former Mandatory Palestine in May 1948 where British Supermarine Spitfire FR.18s shot down four Royal Egyptian Air Force Spitfire LF.9s after the REAF mistakenly attacked RAF Ramat David airbase; and during encounters with the Israeli Air Force which saw the loss of a single de Havilland Mosquito PR.34 in November 1948 and four Spitfire FR.18s and
12366-447: The Aegadian Islands and Cap Bon and 1,040 mines between Bizerte and Keith Rock. The Italians also intended to lay a temporary minefield off Cap Bon on the night of 11/12 August, just before the convoy passed through. On the night of 12/13 August, thirteen MAS, six MS torpedo boats and four S-boats were to lie in wait south of Marettimo (an Aegadian Island) and off Cap Bon, then later to wait off Pantelleria. The 3rd Cruiser Division and
12595-444: The Azores and Gibraltar from 6–9 August and included exercises with the merchant ships in anti-aircraft gunnery, emergency turns and in changing cruising formations, communicating with signal flags and short range wireless telegraphy (W/T). The risk to security in breaking W/T silence during the exercises, was accepted by Allied planners and according to Cunningham, the convoy attained efficiency in manoeuvring "comparable to that of
12824-430: The British Army as close air support to carry out strikes on rebel positions. The Radfan Campaign (Operation Nutcracker) in early 1964 was successful in suppressing the revolt in Radfa, however it did nothing to end the insurgency with the British withdrawing from Aden in November 1967. One of the largest actions undertaken by the RAF during the Cold War was the air campaign during the 1982 Falklands War , in which
13053-456: The British Empire , including establishing bases to protect Singapore and Malaya. The RAF's naval aviation branch, the Fleet Air Arm , was founded in 1924 but handed over to Admiralty control on 24 May 1939. The RAF adopted the doctrine of strategic bombing , which led to the construction of long-range bombers and became its main bombing strategy in the Second World War . The Royal Air Force underwent rapid expansion prior to and during
13282-405: The Far East and from the Home Fleet , which had vessels to spare since the suspension of Arctic convoys , following the Convoy PQ 17 disaster. The Axis command structure in the Mediterranean was centralised at the top and fragmented at the lower levels. Benito Mussolini had monopolised authority over the Italian armed forces since 1933 by taking the offices of Minister of War , Minister of
13511-401: The Gallo-Italic linguistic panorama of Northern Italy , the Italo-Dalmatian , Neapolitan and its related dialects were largely unaffected by the Franco- Occitan influences introduced to Italy mainly by bards from France during the Middle Ages, but after the Norman conquest of southern Italy , Sicily became the first Italian land to adopt Occitan lyric moods (and words) in poetry. Even in
13740-465: The Grisons ), Corsica , and Vatican City . It has official minority status in Croatia , Slovenian Istria , and the municipalities of Santa Tereza and Encantado in Brazil . Italian is also spoken by large immigrant and expatriate communities in the Americas and Australia . Italian is included under the languages covered by the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in Romania , although Italian
13969-399: The Kingdom of Italy in the Dodecanese ). Italian is widely spoken in Malta , where nearly two-thirds of the population can speak it fluently (see Maltese Italian ). Italian served as Malta's official language until 1934, when it was abolished by the British colonial administration amid strong local opposition. Italian language in Slovenia is an officially recognized minority language in
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#173278391968214198-698: The Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia ), although the masses kept speaking primarily their local vernaculars. Italian was also one of the many recognised languages in the Austro-Hungarian Empire . Italy has always had a distinctive dialect for each city because the cities, until recently, were thought of as city-states . Those dialects now have considerable variety . As Tuscan-derived Italian came to be used throughout Italy, features of local speech were naturally adopted, producing various versions of Regional Italian . The most characteristic differences, for instance, between Roman Italian and Milanese Italian are syntactic gemination of initial consonants in some contexts and
14427-504: The London Eye , the RAF Memorial and (at 13.00) the Ministry of Defence building . Four major defence reviews have been conducted since the end of the Cold War: the 1990 Options for Change , the 1998 Strategic Defence Review , the 2003 Delivering Security in a Changing World and the 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR). All four defence reviews have resulted in steady reductions in manpower and numbers of aircraft, especially combat aircraft such as fast-jets. As part of
14656-427: The North African Campaign (1940–1943). From 1940 to 1942, the Axis conducted the Siege of Malta , with air and naval forces. Despite many losses, enough supplies were delivered by the British for the population and military forces on Malta to resist, although it ceased to be an offensive base for much of 1942. The most crucial supply item in Operation Pedestal was fuel, carried by Ohio , an American-owned tanker with
14885-423: The Placiti Cassinesi from the province of Benevento that date from 960 to 963, although the Veronese Riddle , probably from the 8th or early 9th century, contains a late form of Vulgar Latin that can be seen as a very early sample of a vernacular dialect of Italy. The Commodilla catacomb inscription is also a similar case. The Italian language has progressed through a long and slow process, which started after
15114-414: The River Clyde on the night of 2/3 August, escorted by Nigeria , HMS Kenya and destroyers, to rendezvous with the other escorts the following morning. Shortly before the departure from Scapa, the Admiralty decided that Furious should carry out Operation Bellows, to reinforce Malta (known informally as a Club Run) with Spitfires at the same time as Operation Pedestal. The departure of Furious
15343-470: The Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS). This was done as recommended in a report prepared by the South African statesman and general Jan Smuts . At that time it was the largest air force in the world. Its headquarters was located in the former Hotel Cecil . After the war, the RAF was drastically cut and its inter-war years were relatively quiet. The RAF was put in charge of British military activity in Iraq , and carried out minor activities in other parts of
15572-417: The Royal Navy 's Fleet Air Arm and the British Army 's Army Air Corps also operate armed aircraft. The Royal Air Force was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the third independent air force in the world after the Mexican Air Force (established 5 February 1915) and the Finnish Air Force (established 6 March 1918), by merging the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and
15801-438: The Second World War , the RAF established air superiority over Nazi Germany 's Luftwaffe during the Battle of Britain , and led the Allied strategic bombing effort. The RAF's mission is to support the objectives of the British Ministry of Defence (MOD), which are to "provide the capabilities needed to ensure the security and defence of the United Kingdom and overseas territories, including against terrorism; to support
16030-417: The UK Military Flying Training System which is dedicated to training aircrew for all three UK armed services. Specialist ground crew training is focused at RAF Cosford , RAF St Mawgan and MOD St. Athan . Operations are supported by numerous other flying and non-flying stations, with activity focussed at RAF Honington which coordinates Force Protection and RAF Leeming & RAF Wittering which have
16259-438: The United States Air Force , the RAF formed its own RPAS squadron in 2007 when No. 39 Squadron was stood up as a General Atomics MQ-9A Reaper unit at Creech AFB , Nevada. The RAF's 90th anniversary was commemorated on 1 April 2008 by a flypast of the RAF's Aerobatic Display Team the Red Arrows and four Eurofighter Typhoons along the River Thames , in a straight line from just south of London City Airport Tower Bridge,
16488-714: The Western Desert Campaign (1940–43) in North Africa, against the Axis forces of Italy aided by Germany , which sent the Deutsches Afrika Korps and substantial Luftwaffe detachments to the Mediterranean in late 1940. Up to the end of the year, 21 ships with 160,000 long tons (160,000 t) of cargo had reached Malta without loss and a reserve of seven months' supplies had been accumulated. Three convoys to Malta in 1941 suffered
16717-528: The Western Roman Empire's fall in the 5th century. The language that came to be thought of as Italian developed in central Tuscany and was first formalized in the early 14th century through the works of Tuscan writer Dante Alighieri , written in his native Florentine . Dante's epic poems, known collectively as the Commedia , to which another Tuscan poet Giovanni Boccaccio later affixed
16946-740: The Westland Puma HC2 for search and rescue. No. 230 Squadron , based at Medicina Lines , Brunei, also operate the Puma HC2. A flying squadron is an aircraft unit which carries out the primary tasks of the RAF. RAF squadrons are somewhat analogous to the regiments of the British Army in that they have histories and traditions going back to their formation, regardless of where they are based or which aircraft they are operating. They can be awarded standards and battle honours for meritorious service. Most flying squadrons are commanded by
17175-532: The 111 Italian lecturer sections belonging to foreign schools where Italian is taught as a language of culture. As of 2022, Australia had the highest number of students learning Italian in the world. This occurred because of support by the Italian community in Australia and the Italian Government and also because of successful educational reform efforts led by local governments in Australia. From
17404-510: The 13th century in the form of various religious texts and poetry. Although these are the first written records of Italian varieties separate from Latin, the spoken language had probably diverged long before the first written records appeared since those who were literate generally wrote in Latin even if they spoke other Romance varieties in person. Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, the use of Standard Italian became increasingly widespread and
17633-562: The 1970s. It is official both on the national level and on regional level in two cantons : Ticino and Grisons . In the latter canton, however, it is only spoken by a small minority, in the Italian Grisons . Ticino, which includes Lugano , the largest Italian-speaking city outside Italy, is the only canton where Italian is predominant. Italian is also used in administration and official documents in Vatican City . Italian
17862-759: The 1991 Gulf War , the 1999 Kosovo War , the 2001 War in Afghanistan , the 2003 invasion and war in Iraq , the 2011 intervention in Libya and from 2014 onwards has been involved in the war against the Islamic State . The RAF began conducting Remotely-piloted Air System (RPAS) operations in 2004, with No. 1115 Flight carrying out missions in Afghanistan and Iraq with the General Atomics MQ-1 Predator . Initially embedded with
18091-464: The 3rd Cruiser Division with the eight-inch cruisers Gorizia , Bolzano and Trieste and seven destroyers, along with the 7th Cruiser Division with the six-inch cruisers Eugenio di Savoia , Raimondo Montecuccoli and Muzio Attendolo and five destroyers plus 18 submarines, 19 torpedo boats (six MS and 13 MAS ); the Germans had three U-boats and four S-boats. The Axis air forces lacked
18320-474: The 7th Cruiser Division would be about 100 nmi (190 km; 120 mi) north of Pantelleria during the afternoon of 12 August and then sail through the night on an interception course south of Pantelleria, to attack the remains of the convoy and its close escort just before dawn. It was assumed that Axis aircraft could provide fighter cover against the larger number of British aircraft from Malta. Should an Allied convoy sail from Egypt, it would be attacked by
18549-598: The 8th Cruiser Division based at Navarino in Greece but the division was ordered into the Ionian Sea on 12 August, to support the 3rd Cruiser Division. Axis planners lacked information about Allied plans but had fair knowledge of the Allied order of battle and the movement of Allied forces inside the Mediterranean, from the reports of ship-watching stations near Gibraltar, reconnaissance aircraft and submarines. Reports from
18778-524: The African convoy routes, 94,000 long tons (96,000 t) by the navy and 115,000 long tons (117,000 t) by the Royal Air Force (RAF) and Fleet Air Arm (FAA). Loaded ships sailing to Africa accounted for 90 per cent of the ships sunk and Malta-based squadrons were responsible for about 75 per cent of the ships that were sunk by aircraft. Military operations from Malta and use of the island as
19007-547: The Battle of Britain contributed significantly to the delay and subsequent indefinite postponement of Operation Sea Lion , Hitler's plans for an invasion of the UK. In the House of Commons on 20 August, prompted by the ongoing efforts of the RAF, Prime Minister Winston Churchill made a speech to the nation, where he said " Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few" . The largest RAF effort during
19236-569: The Berlin Blockade take place. As part of Operation Pitting , the RAF helped evacuate over 15,000 people in two weeks. Between April and May 2023, the RAF helped evacuate over 2,300 people from Sudan due to the 2023 Sudan conflict as part of Operation Polarbear . In April 2024, Typhoon FGR4s operating from RAF Akrotiri, Cyprus, engaged and destroyed Iranian drones over Iraqi and Syrian airspace during Iran's strikes against Israel . The professional head and highest-ranking officer of
19465-465: The British learned that at 18:00 the 7th Cruiser Division with seventeen destroyers, had sailed east and that the 3rd Cruiser Division had departed from Messina and Naples. Allied intelligence also learned that Panzerarmee Afrika in Egypt believed that the convoy was a threat to Tobruk. Kesselring thought that a landing on the North African coast might be attempted and next day issued an order of
19694-422: The British radar on Malta. Five aircraft had turned back with mechanical failures but the rest evaded four Fulmars. Deucalion was hit and forced out of the convoy, escorted by HMS Bramham . The number of Axis aircraft in the attacks was unprecedented, with 117 Italian and 58 German sorties for only meagre results. Two bombers, a torpedo-bomber and a fighter had been lost for one hit on Victorious and
19923-467: The British ships at 04:30 on 11 August; the captain approached on the surface and fired three torpedoes, claiming a hit on the carrier in a 09:36 sighting report and during the evening a Ju 88 photographed the fleet from high altitude, immune to anti-aircraft fire or FAA fighters. The Italian submarines were ordered into three patrol lines to intercept the convoy. On 12 August, Kesselring began discussions with Comando Supremo (Italian High Command) for
20152-851: The Fleet Dudley Pound , the First Sea Lord (professional head of the Royal Navy), concurred with the Prime Minister Winston Churchill that the loss of Malta would be ... a disaster of [the] first magnitude to the British Empire, and probably [would be] fatal in the long run to the defence of the Nile Valley. ... and prepared a new convoy operation from Gibraltar, with an unprecedented number of escorts using ships taken from
20381-582: The Government's foreign policy objectives particularly in promoting international peace and security". The RAF describes its mission statement as "... [to provide] an agile, adaptable and capable Air Force that, person for person, is second to none, and that makes a decisive air power contribution in support of the UK Defence Mission". The mission statement is supported by the RAF's definition of air power , which guides its strategy. Air power
20610-673: The Houses of Parliament, Conservative MP and Minister of State for the Armed Forces , Andrew Robathan , announced that the RAF's QRA force had been scrambled almost thirty times in the last three years: eleven times during 2010, ten times during 2011 and eight times during 2012. RAF Coningsby in Lincolnshire and RAF Lossiemouth in Moray both provide QRA aircraft, and scramble their Typhoons within minutes to meet or intercept aircraft which give cause for concern. Lossiemouth generally covers
20839-417: The Italian dialects has declined in the modern era , as Italy unified under Standard Italian and continues to do so aided by mass media from newspapers to radio to television, diglossia is still frequently encountered in Italy and triglossia is not uncommon in emigrant communities among older speakers. Both situations normally involve some degree of code-switching and code-mixing . Notes: Italian has
21068-489: The Italian language into a lingua franca used not only among clerks, nobility, and functionaries in the Italian courts but also by the bourgeoisie . Italian literature's first modern novel, I promessi sposi ( The Betrothed ) by Alessandro Manzoni , further defined the standard by "rinsing" his Milanese "in the waters of the Arno " ( Florence 's river), as he states in the preface to his 1840 edition. After unification,
21297-460: The Italian submarine Dagabur at 27 kn (50 km/h; 31 mph), sinking the submarine with all hands. Axis aircraft resumed shadowing at 05:00 and at 06:10, Indomitable sent Martlets to shoot down two Ju 88 reconnaissance aircraft, which proved too high and too fast to intercept. Four Sea Hurricanes and Fulmars took off from the two carriers for air cover and every aircraft was readied to fly. German reconnaissance aircraft kept watch on
21526-652: The Italians used the lack of fuel as a pretext. Admiral Eberhard Weichold , the German naval attaché in Rome, wanted the Luftwaffe to provide air cover for Italian ships. Marshal Ugo Cavallero , Chief of the General Staff (Capo di Stato Maggiore Generale) , also wanted Italian surface forces to participate in the operation but Supermarina did not want its big ships to operate without air cover. Axis tactics were similar to those used against Operation Harpoon in June;
21755-556: The Mediterranean. The increasing political and cultural relevance of Florence during the periods of the rise of the Medici Bank , humanism , and the Renaissance made its dialect, or rather a refined version of it, a standard in the arts. The Renaissance era, known as il Rinascimento in Italian, was seen as a time of rebirth, which is the literal meaning of both renaissance (from French) and rinascimento (Italian). During this time, long-existing beliefs stemming from
21984-528: The Navy and Minister of Aeronautics . Feldmarschall Albert Kesselring of the Luftwaffe commanded German ground forces in the theatre as Commander-in-Chief South ( Oberbefehlshaber Süd, OB Süd ) but had no authority over Axis operations in North Africa or the organisation of convoys to Libya. Fliegerkorps II and Fliegerkorps X were subordinate to the usual Luftwaffe chain of command. Since November 1941, Kesselring had exercised some influence over
22213-689: The RAF is delegated by the Air Force Board to Headquarters Air Command , based at RAF High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire . Air Command was formed on 1 April 2007 by combining RAF Strike Command and RAF Personnel and Training Command , resulting in a single command covering the whole RAF, led by the Chief of the Air Staff. Through its subordinate groups , Air Command oversees the whole spectrum of RAF aircraft and operations. United Kingdom Space Command (UKSC), established 1 April 2021 under
22442-470: The RAF operated alongside the Fleet Air Arm . During the war, RAF aircraft were deployed in the mid-Atlantic at RAF Ascension Island and a detachment from No. 1 Squadron was deployed with the Royal Navy, operating from the aircraft carrier HMS Hermes . RAF pilots also flew missions using the Royal Navy's Sea Harriers in the air-to-air combat role, in particular Flight Lieutenant Dave Morgan
22671-670: The RAF's intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition, and reconnaissance (ISTAR) capabilities. It oversees stations at RAF Coningsby and RAF Waddington in Lincolnshire, RAF Lossiemouth in Moray and RAF Marham in Norfolk. The group's Eurofighter Typhoon FGR4 aircraft protect UK and NATO airspace by providing a continuous Quick Reaction Alert capability. No. 2 Group controls the Air Mobility Force which provides strategic and tactical airlift , air-to-air refuelling and command support air transport (CSAT). The group
22900-427: The RAF's rotary-wing aircraft form part of the tri-service Joint Aviation Command in support of ground forces. Most of the RAF's aircraft and personnel are based in the UK, with many others serving on global operations (principally over Iraq and Syria ) or at long-established overseas bases ( Ascension Island , Cyprus , Gibraltar , and the Falkland Islands ). Although the RAF is the principal British air power arm,
23129-714: The Royal Air Force is the Chief of the Air Staff (CAS). He reports to the Chief of the Defence Staff , who is the professional head of the British Armed Forces . The incumbent Chief of the Air Staff is Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton who was appointed in 2023. The management of the RAF is the responsibility of the Air Force Board , a sub-committee of the Defence Council which
23358-716: The Second World War. Under the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan of December 1939, the air forces of British Commonwealth countries trained and formed " Article XV squadrons " for service with RAF formations. Many individual personnel from these countries, and exiles from occupied Europe , also served with RAF squadrons. By the end of the war the Royal Canadian Air Force had contributed more than 30 squadrons to serve in RAF formations, similarly, approximately
23587-586: The Skerki Channel, the starboard column with Kenya in the lead and Manchester sixth back, the port column with Nigeria leading and Carlisle in the centre, ten destroyers sailing outside the columns. Five Italian submarines were waiting and at 19:38, Dessiè fired four torpedoes at a freighter from 2,000 yd (1,800 m) and heard three explosions. The sound of the detonations turned out to be from torpedoes fired by Axum hitting Nigeria with 52 men killed, HMS Cairo and Ohio blowing
23816-538: The Straits in dense fog during the night of 9/10 August. Fishing boats and one merchant vessel were passed at close quarters but due to the moonless night and the fog, Syfret thought it improbable that the force had been sighted from the shore. Abwehr agents near Gibraltar and Ceuta had sighted the convoy and the British decrypted their Enigma messages, learning how well-informed the Axis were and of their plans to defeat
24045-600: The Suez Crisis, when an English Electric Canberra PR7 was shot down over Syria . In 1957, the RAF participated heavily during the Jebel Akhdar War in Oman, operating both de Havilland Venom and Avro Shackleton aircraft. The RAF made 1,635 raids, dropping 1,094 tons and firing 900 rockets at the interior of Oman between July and December 1958, targeting insurgents, mountain top villages and water channels in
24274-638: The Tobruk area. On the morning of 8 August, a report erroneously indicated that an Argus-class carrier and four destroyers had sailed into Gibraltar and Abwehr agents reported much shipping in the Strait of Gibraltar on the night of 8/9 August. By 10 August 220 Luftwaffe aircraft were on Sicily along with 300 aircraft of the Regia Aeronautica and another 150 Italian aircraft assembled on Sardinia. The Italian submarine Uarsciek sighted
24503-697: The United States and works in close cooperation with the U.S. Air Force in the development of the Lockheed Martin F-35B Lightning . No. 80 Squadron is part of the Australia, Canada and United Kingdom Reprogramming Laboratory (ACURL) at Eglin Air Force Base , Florida, and is tasked with compiling and testing the Mission Data File Sets (MDFS) for the F-35. No. 84 Squadron is located at RAF Akrotiri, operating
24732-764: The Vale of Glamorgan, RAF St Mawgan in Cornwall and RAF Valley on Anglesey. The No. 22 Group also manages the Royal Air Force Air Cadets . An RAF station is ordinarily subordinate to a group and is commanded by a group captain . Each station typically hosts several flying and non-flying squadrons or units which are supported by administrative and support wings. Front-line flying operations are focused at eight stations: Flying training takes places at RAF Barkston Heath , RAF College Cranwell , RAF Shawbury and RAF Valley , each forming part of
24961-497: The air force's V bomber fleet. These were initially armed with nuclear gravity bombs , later being equipped with the Blue Steel missile . Following the development of the Royal Navy's Polaris submarines , the strategic nuclear deterrent passed to the navy's submarines on 30 June 1969. With the introduction of Polaris, the RAF's strategic nuclear role was reduced to a tactical one, using WE.177 gravity bombs. This tactical role
25190-460: The aircraft carriers and 20 long-range bombers from Crete and 10 torpedo-bombers from the training school at Grosseto had flown to Sardinia. In Sicily, 15 dive-bomber crews resting from operations were alerted and six Bf 110 long-range fighters were sent from Africa, bringing the Axis total to 701 aircraft. Force R left Gibraltar on 9 August, ready to meet the convoy at a rendezvous south of Majorca ; Force F made an uneventful passage of
25419-525: The aircraft reached Malta). Enigma decrypts showed that at 11:55, the light cruisers Eugenio di Savoia , Raimondo Montecuccoli , Muzio Attendolo of the 7th Cruiser Division at Cagliari had been ordered by Supermarina to be at two hours' notice from 18:00 and that with the heavy cruisers Gorizia , Bolzano and Trieste of the 3rd Cruiser Division at Messina, had been informed at 13:00 that Italian submarines were operating north of Bizerte. Three Axis submarines were seen departing Cagliari at 20:45 and
25648-445: The airfield. The Axis air forces had flown 180–220 escorted bomber sorties during the day and the Germans claimed that they had damaged an aircraft carrier, a cruiser, a destroyer and a large merchant ship. Both sides over-claimed, the British counted 39 shot-down aircraft against the true figure of 18 Axis aircraft lost; three Fulmars, three Sea Hurricanes and one Martlet had been shot down. The loss of Eagle with its 16 aircraft and
25877-401: The area until about 04:30 on 13 August. At 21:45, a Fliegerkorps II assessment revealed that the Axis thought that there were fifty-one ships in the western Mediterranean, including two carriers, two battleships, seven cruisers and twenty destroyers. The Germans mistakenly thought that a US Yorktown -class aircraft carrier was present but correctly identified Rodney and Nelson . The convoy
26106-668: The arrival of jet fighters and bombers. During the early stages of the Cold War, one of the first major operations undertaken by the RAF was the Berlin Airlift , codenamed Operation Plainfire. Between 26 June 1948 and the lifting of the Russian blockade of the city on 12 May 1949, the RAF provided 17% of the total supplies delivered, using Avro Yorks , Douglas Dakotas flying to Gatow Airport and Short Sunderlands flying to Lake Havel. The RAF saw its first post-war engagements in
26335-565: The best Axis fighters. The dive- and torpedo-bomber attacks were well synchronised, the Ju 87s diving as the torpedo bombers approached in three waves at 1,200 ft (370 m). The Ju 87s managed a near miss on Rodney with the 1,100 lb (500 kg) bomb exploding in the sea, one Stuka being shot down by a Hurricane and one by anti-aircraft fire. As the ships manoeuvred to evade the torpedo-bombers, another wave of Ju 87s arrived at 9,000 ft (2,700 m) and bombed Indomitable from out of
26564-561: The bombers that managed to get into range. The third wave comprised a pair of Re.2001G/V fighter-bombers from the Sezione Speciale (Special Section), intended to carry 1,390 lb (630 kg) low-altitude armour-piercing bombs. The bombs were not ready and the aircraft carried anti-personnel bombs; the fighter-bombers were accompanied by a special radio-controlled SM.79, loaded with a 2,200 lb (1,000 kg) bomb and directed by Generale di brigata Ferdinando Raffaelli in
26793-444: The capital ships were non-operational for lack of fuel and air cover. The navy had received only 12,000 long tons (12,000 t) of fuel in June, equivalent to 20 per cent of fuel consumption by convoys and the Italian battleships had to refuel the smaller vessels. Because of the fuel-shortage, Mussolini suggested to Hitler that a Malta convoy should be opposed only by submarines and land-based aircraft. Supermarina managed to prepare
27022-444: The case of Northern Italian languages, however, scholars are careful not to overstate the effects of outsiders on the natural indigenous developments of the languages. The economic might and relatively advanced development of Tuscany at the time ( Late Middle Ages ) gave its language weight, although Venetian remained widespread in medieval Italian commercial life, and Ligurian (or Genoese) remained in use in maritime trade alongside
27251-892: The close escort to Malta, Force Z was made up of the heavy ships of Force F , that were to turn back to Gibraltar and Force Y was to conduct Operation Ascendant, a run from Malta to Gibraltar by the two ships that had reached the island during Operation Harpoon and escorts, when Pedestal entered the Mediterranean. Embarked on Victorious were 809 Squadron and 884 Squadron FAA with sixteen Fulmars and 885 Squadron with six Sea Hurricanes ; on Indomitable , 806 Squadron had ten Martlets , 800 Squadron and 880 Squadron had twenty-four Sea Hurricanes, 827 Squadron and 831 Squadron had fourteen Fairey Albacores . On Eagle were 801 Squadron and 813 Squadron with sixteen Sea Hurricanes. Based on Malta were five Baltimores , six PRU Spitfires and five Wellington Mk VIII reconnaissance aircraft. Reinforcements were sent temporarily from Egypt, raising
27480-474: The co-ordination of Axis forces for the forthcoming operation. During the morning Kesselring reported that the Luftwaffe was fully committed to bomber escort sorties, could not provide air cover for Italian ships and suggested laying mines but the Regia Marina had already laid one. The inability of the Luftwaffe to provide air cover for the Italian fleet greatly reduced its opportunities to intervene but
27709-653: The colonial period. In the early 19th century, Eritrea was the country with the highest number of Italians abroad, and the Italian Eritreans grew from 4,000 during World War I to nearly 100,000 at the beginning of World War II. In Asmara there are two Italian schools, the Italian School of Asmara (Italian primary school with a Montessori department) and the Liceo Sperimentale "G. Marconi" (Italian international senior high school). Italian
27938-414: The command of Air Vice-Marshal Paul Godfrey is a joint command, but sits "under the Royal Air Force." Godfrey is of equal rank to the commanders of 1, 2, 11, and 22 Groups. The new command has "responsibility for not just operations, but also generating, training and growing the force, and also owning the money and putting all the programmatic rigour into delivering new ..capabilities." UKSC headquarters
28167-537: The conduct of German naval operations in the Mediterranean as the nominal head of Naval Command Italy ( Marinekommando Italien ) but this was subordinate to the Kriegsmarine chain of command. German inter-service rivalries obstructed co-operation and there was little unity of effort between German and the Italian forces in the Mediterranean. Kesselring had authority only to co-ordinate plans for combined operations by German and Italian forces and some influence on
28396-547: The convoy and a Re.2001 was shot down by an 806 Squadron Martlet from Indomitable . The convoy crossed the 10th parallel, beyond which aircraft based in Sicily could fly with fighter escorts and 105 aircraft prepared to attack in three waves. Problems with the fighter escorts were encountered because the Re.2001s of the 2° Gruppo CT had escorted the Sardinia-based bombers and landed in Sardinia, making them unavailable until
28625-470: The convoy and its huge escort force had caused the Axis commanders to be apprehensive of a landing anywhere along the North African coast or on Crete. Axis precautionary measures had been taken on the assumption that if Crete was the target, landings would occur before 14 August. Defensive measures were also taken in the Benghazi–Tripoli area of Libya, where a squadron of Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighters and
28854-620: The convoy drop depth charges every ten minutes to deter submarines. Force F entered the Italian submarine ambush area C and just after 16:00 HMS Pathfinder obtained an ASDIC contact on Granito , forced it away with five depth charges but then had to return to the convoy. (Many submarine alarms were possibly caused by ghost Asdic contacts, due to the warm waters of the Mediterranean.) The Regia Aeronautica units based in Sardinia managed to prepare eight Cr.42 dive-bombers and an escort of nine Re.2001 from 362° Squadriglie and nine SM.79 bombers from Decimomannu . The SM.79s failed to find
29083-486: The convoy gunners. Ashanti and HMS Penn laid a smokescreen to cover the light western horizon, the sun having set at 20:10 but the reduced anti-aircraft firepower of the convoy and escorts failed to prevent the attack. After thirty minutes Brisbane Star was stopped, hit in the bows (possibly by the Italian submarine Alagi ), eventually to continue at 5 kn (5.8 mph; 9.3 km/h). Clan Ferguson
29312-511: The convoy might be proceeding to the eastern Mediterranean. Enigma also revealed operation orders from Fliegerkorps II to the fighters of Jagdgeschwader 77 (JG 77) at Elmas in Sardinia, to expect a convoy in the Sicilian Narrows early on 12 August. Fliegerkorps II was to co-operate with the Regia Aeronautica in Sicily and Sardinia, flying in waves with fighter escorts against the convoy. British intelligence concluded that
29541-451: The convoy was about 200 nmi (370 km; 230 mi) from Sardinia, with 27 Ju 88 bombers and three He 111 torpedo-bombers. The Heinkels flew low to drop torpedoes and the Ju 88s attacked out of the dusk in shallow dives, that evaded the fighters but anti-aircraft fire from the convoy shot down two Ju 88s for no loss and then damaged several British fighters as they landed on. During
29770-513: The convoy, flying too high and fast for the FAA fighters. At 09:15, when the convoy was about 130 nmi (240 km; 150 mi) south-south-west of Sardinia, 19 Ju 88 dive-bombers of Lehrgeschwader 1 ( LG 1) were intercepted 25 nmi (29 mi; 46 km) out. Four Ju 88s were shot down and another two were claimed by navy anti-aircraft gunners (German records showed five shot down and two lost over Sardinia from mechanical failure) for
29999-517: The convoy. At 16:49 Cobalto was depth charged by HMS Ithuriel while at periscope depth, forced to the surface, engaged by gunfire and rammed by Ithuriel , sinking at 17:02. Ithuriel lost two crewmen who had boarded Cobalto to try keep the submarine afloat; two Italian seamen were lost and the rest were rescued by the British. Ithuriel was badly damaged, lost its Asdic, was slowed to 20 kn (37 km/h; 23 mph) and had to make for Gibraltar. Syfret had two destroyers on each flank of
30228-454: The convoy. At about 08:00 on 10 August, German reconnaissance aircraft detected the convoy and at 12:45 reported that the convoy was about 70 nmi (130 km; 81 mi) north of Algiers. At 17:00 a French aircraft reported two aircraft carriers, two battleships, two cruisers, fourteen destroyers and twelve merchant vessels about 50 nmi (93 km; 58 mi) north of Oran . Luftwaffe reconnaissance aircraft reported at 19:00 that
30457-518: The convoy. The German submarine escaped, possibly due to layers of the sea being at different temperatures, affecting the ships' ASDIC and after the torpedoing there were frequent false alarms. At 14:30 a Ju 88 , one of ten Aufklärungsgruppe 122 aircraft that had shadowed the convoy from 10:10, flew a reconnaissance sortie over the convoy, too high for the Sea Hurricanes to intercept. The Luftwaffe attacked just after sunset at 20:56, when
30686-573: The country (some 0.42% of the total population). Their numbers dropped dramatically after World War II following the Istrian–Dalmatian exodus , which caused the emigration of between 230,000 and 350,000 Istrian Italians and Dalmatian Italians. Italian was the official language of the Republic of Ragusa from 1492 to 1807. It formerly had official status in Albania due to the annexation of
30915-518: The country to the Kingdom of Italy (1939–1943). Albania has a large population of non-native speakers, with over half of the population having some knowledge of the Italian language. The Albanian government has pushed to make Italian a compulsory second language in schools. The Italian language is well-known and studied in Albania, due to its historical ties and geographical proximity to Italy and to
31144-446: The country. A few hundred Italian settlers returned to Libya in the 2000s. Italian was the official language of Eritrea during Italian colonisation . Italian is today used in commerce, and it is still spoken especially among elders; besides that, Italian words are incorporated as loan words in the main language spoken in the country (Tigrinya). The capital city of Eritrea, Asmara , still has several Italian schools, established during
31373-415: The country. The official census, carried out in 2002, reported 2,258 ethnic Italians ( Istrian Italians ) in Slovenia (0.11% of the total population). Italian language in Croatia is an official minority language in the country, with many schools and public announcements published in both languages. The 2001 census in Croatia reported 19,636 ethnic Italians (Istrian Italians and Dalmatian Italians ) in
31602-450: The damage to Deucalion . The quantity of anti-aircraft fire had led many aircrew to release their bombs and torpedoes early; the Italian aircraft from Sardinia could refuel and rearm to attack again and a Cant Z1007 and several Luftwaffe aircraft continued to shadow the convoy. Enigma decrypts showed the British that at 18:30 on 12 August, an S-boat flotilla was due to sail at 16:00 from Porto Empedocle in Sicily for Cap Bon to operate in
31831-435: The damage to Indomitable which kept its 47 more aircraft out of action, reduced the number of operational fighters to eight Sea Hurricanes, three Martlets and 10 Fulmars, as Force Z was due to leave the convoy, to remain outside the range of Axis aircraft based in Sardinia. Syfret had intended Force Z to turn west upon reaching the Skerki Bank at 19:15 but ordered the turn at 18:55 to get Indomitable out of danger. Rodney
32060-433: The damaged cruisers, temporarily deprived Force X of its commander, the two columns of the leaders and deprived the convoy nearly half its escort. On hearing that Nigeria and Cairo , which were equipped as Fighter Direction ships, had been torpedoed, Syfret ordered Force Z to send back HMS Charybdis , also fitted for fighter direction, with HMS Eskimo and HMS Somali to reinforce Force X . Nigeria and
32289-435: The day that landings by the Allies would influence operations in Africa and must be prevented. Luftgau Afrika (Air District Africa) expected a landing at Tripoli on 13 or 14 August. At 08:00, U-73 sighted ships out of range but behind them another group of merchantmen were followed by the carrier Eagle . She was able to manoeuvre within 400 yd (370 m) and fire four torpedoes which hit Eagle at 13:15, sinking
32518-479: The day, which depleted Force X ; five Wellington bombers were sent to find the Italian cruisers and 15 Beaufort torpedo-bombers and fifteen Beaufighters stood by. The biggest convoy attack came around noon from Sardinia-based aircraft; a wave of ten SM.84 bombers from 38° Gruppo BT and eight CR.42s of 24° Gruppo CT flying as bombers with 14 MC.202 escorts, followed after five minutes by nine Savoia-Marchetti SM.79s and ten SM.84 torpedo bombers attacking
32747-463: The decline of the British Empire, global operations were scaled back, and RAF Far East Air Force was disbanded on 31 October 1971. Despite this, the RAF fought in many battles in the Cold War period. In June 1948, the RAF commenced Operation Firedog against Malayan pro-independence fighters during the Malayan Emergency . Operations continued for the next 12 years until 1960 with aircraft flying out of RAF Tengah and RAF Butterworth . The RAF played
32976-464: The design and fashion industries, in some sports such as football and especially in culinary terms. In Italy, almost all the other languages spoken as the vernacular —other than standard Italian and some languages spoken among immigrant communities—are often called " Italian dialects ", a label that can be very misleading if it is understood to mean "dialects of Italian". The Romance dialects of Italy are local evolutions of spoken Latin that pre-date
33205-478: The destroyers HMS Badsworth and HMS Matchless ( Force Y ) on the night of the first day of Operation Pedestal. The ships were to be disguised with Italian deck markings and sortie from Malta, to 30 nmi (56 km; 35 mi) to the south of Lampedusa, then sail past Kelibia on Cap Bon , keeping close to the Tunisian coast as far as the Galita Channel and from there make for Gibraltar. ( Force Y left Malta about 20:30 on 10 August, reached Cap Bon
33434-420: The diffusion of Italian television in the country. Due to heavy Italian influence during the Italian colonial period , Italian is still understood by some in former colonies such as Libya. Although it was the primary language in Libya since colonial rule , Italian greatly declined under the rule of Muammar Gaddafi , who expelled the Italian Libyan population and made Arabic the sole official language of
33663-399: The direction of Vice-Admiral Neville Syfret , Rear Admirals Lumley Lyster and Harold Burrough and the Naval Staff. Syfret transferred to HMS Nelson on 27 July when Nelson and HMS Rodney returned to Scapa Flow from Freetown , West Africa. Syfret convened a conference on 29 July, for Flag and Commanding Officers of the naval forces for Pedestal at Scapa, to consider
33892-418: The eastern Mediterranean. The Allies learned through Enigma that the Luftwaffe had supply difficulties in Sardinia, preventing the movement there of long-range bombers and of fighter operations to the extent intended and that the Luftwaffe had sent 40 to 45 long-range bombers and 6 twin-engined fighters from the eastern Mediterranean; Fliegerführer Afrika was forced to divert aircraft for convoy escorts in
34121-420: The educated gentlemen was to make the Grand Tour , visiting Italy to see its great historical monuments and works of art. It was expected that the visitor would learn at least some Italian, understood as language based on Florentine. In England, while the classical languages Latin and Greek were the first to be learned, Italian became the second most common modern language after French, a position it held until
34350-417: The end of August 1942, 670 Hurricane and Sptifire fighters had been flown off carriers in the western Mediterranean. Many other aircraft used Malta as a staging post for North Africa and the Desert Air Force . Malta was a base for air, sea and submarine operations against Axis supply convoys and from 1 June to 31 October 1941, British forces sank about 220,000 long tons (220,000 t) of Axis shipping on
34579-417: The entrance to Skerki Bank or to use aircraft-carriers for attacks on Sardinian airfields, to ease the passage of a convoy. The Regia Aeronautica had 328 aircraft (90 torpedo-bombers, 62 bombers, 25 dive-bombers and 151 fighters) and the Luftwaffe 456 aircraft (328 dive-bombers, 32 medium bombers and 96 fighters [most of the Luftwaffe torpedo-bombers had been sent to Norway in June and were too late for
34808-409: The establishment of Italian, and as such are sister languages to the Tuscan that was the historical source of Italian. They can be quite different from Italian and from each other, with some belonging to different linguistic branches of Romance. The only exceptions to this are twelve groups considered " historical language minorities ", which are officially recognized as distinct minority languages by
35037-433: The fact that it was linguistically an intermediate between the northern and the southern Italian dialects. Thus the dialect of Florence became the basis for what would become the official language of Italy. Italian was progressively made an official language of most of the Italian states predating unification, slowly replacing Latin, even when ruled by foreign powers (such as Spain in the Kingdom of Naples , or Austria in
35266-402: The fighters to escort surface ships, bombers and torpedo bombers and Mussolini preferred to use the fighters as bomber escorts and as cover for surface forces. Kesselring rejected the Italian request to provide air cover for the Italian fleet, because the Luftwaffe did not have enough fighters. Kesselring doubted that the Italian heavy cruisers could succeed even with air cover and thought that
35495-569: The first hint of something abnormal, a controller has the option to put them on a higher level of alert, 'a call to cockpit'. In this scenario the pilot races to the hardened aircraft shelter and does everything short of starting his engines". On 4 October 2015, a final stand-down saw the end of more than 70 years of RAF Search and Rescue provision in the UK. The RAF and Royal Navy's Westland Sea King fleets, after over 30 years of service, were retired. A civilian contractor, Bristow Helicopters , took over responsibility for UK Search and Rescue, under
35724-406: The flight deck left it out of action. Aircraft landed on Victorious but those that could not be accommodated were thrown overboard. Charybdis , Lookout , Lightning and Somali gave assistance to Indomitable and the SM.79 torpedo-bombers were met with concentrated anti-aircraft fire. Twelve of the SM.79s managed to drop torpedoes, at the long range of 3,000 yd (2,700 m); Foresight
35953-764: The forward slope, fell off the front near stalling speed and narrowly avoided ditching. An immediate request was made to the Air Ministry for constant-speed propellers and two days later, a Spitfire with the new propeller took off easily, leaving 38 aircraft still on board to be flown to Malta. In company with HMS Manchester , she joined Nelson and the convoy three days before the start of Operation Pedestal. On 31 July, Nelson , Rodney , HMS Victorious , HMS Argus , HMS Sirius and destroyers sailed from Scapa to rendezvous with HMS Eagle and HMS Charybdis from Gibraltar and HMS Indomitable and HMS Phoebe , from Freetown, for Operation Berserk. The operation took place between
36182-424: The four Fulmars left for the convoy, one had been shot down and one damaged by Bf 109s. At 18:55, Burrough, with the close escort of Force X , continued towards Malta with the merchant ships and Force R cruised in the western Mediterranean in case it was needed, until ordered to return to Gibraltar (arriving in the morning of 16 August). At about 20:00, the convoy manoeuvred from four to two columns to pass through
36411-474: The fourteen merchant ships reached Grand Harbour . While costly for the Allies, it was a strategic victory ; the arrival of Ohio justified the decision to hazard so many warships; its cargo of aviation fuel revitalised the Maltese air offensive against Axis shipping. Submarines returned to Malta and Spitfires flown from the aircraft carrier HMS Furious enabled a maximum effort to be made against Axis ships. Italian convoys had to detour further away from
36640-410: The free website and application Duolingo has 4.94 million English speakers learning the Italian language. According to the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs , every year there are more than 200,000 foreign students who study the Italian language; they are distributed among the 90 Institutes of Italian Culture that are located around the world, in the 179 Italian schools located abroad, or in
36869-402: The great bulk of the RAF's bombing campaign, mainly due to Harris, but it also developed precision bombing techniques for specific operations, such as the infamous "Dambusters" raid by No. 617 Squadron , or the Amiens prison raid known as Operation Jericho . Following victory in the Second World War, the RAF underwent significant re-organisation, as technological advances in air warfare saw
37098-462: The highest scoring pilot of the war. Following a British victory, the RAF remained in the South Atlantic to provide air defence to the Falkland Islands, with the McDonnell Douglas Phantom FGR2 based at RAF Mount Pleasant which was built in 1984. With the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union, the RAF's focus returned to expeditionary air power . Since 1990, the RAF has been involved in several large-scale operations, including
37327-431: The island of Corsica (but not in the neighbouring Sardinia , which on the contrary underwent Italianization well into the late 18th century, under Savoyard sway: the island's linguistic composition, roofed by the prestige of Spanish among the Sardinians , would therein make for a rather slow process of assimilation to the Italian cultural sphere ). The rediscovery of Dante's De vulgari eloquentia , as well as
37556-421: The island, lengthening the journey and increasing the time during which air and naval attacks could be mounted. The Siege of Malta was broken by the Allied reconquest of Egypt and Libya after the Second Battle of El Alamein (23 October – 11 November) and by Operation Torch (8–16 November) in the western Mediterranean, which enabled land-based aircraft to escort merchant ships to the island. The Allies waged
37785-451: The language has a 7-vowel sound system ('e' and 'o' have mid-low and mid-high sounds). Italian has contrast between short and long consonants and gemination (doubling) of consonants. During the Middle Ages , the established written language in Europe was Latin, although the great majority of people were illiterate, and only few were well versed in the language. In the Italian Peninsula , as in most of Europe, most would instead speak
38014-531: The language to that continent. According to some sources, Italian is the second most spoken language in Argentina after the official language of Spanish, although its number of speakers, mainly of the older generation, is decreasing. Italian bilingual speakers can be found scattered across the Southeast of Brazil as well as in the South. In Venezuela , Italian is the most spoken language after Spanish and Portuguese, with around 200,000 speakers. In Uruguay , people who speak Italian as their home language are 1.1% of
38243-434: The late 18th century when it tended to be replaced by German. John Milton , for instance, wrote some of his early poetry in Italian. Within the Catholic Church , Italian is known by a large part of the ecclesiastical hierarchy and is used in substitution for Latin in some official documents. Italian loanwords continue to be used in most languages in matters of art and music (especially classical music including opera), in
38472-424: The late 19th to the mid-20th century, millions of Italians settled in Argentina, Uruguay, Southern Brazil and Venezuela, as well as in Canada and the United States, where they formed a physical and cultural presence. In some cases, colonies were established where variants of regional languages of Italy were used, and some continue to use this regional language. Examples are Rio Grande do Sul , Brazil, where Talian
38701-567: The latest 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review, the BAE Systems Nimrod MRA4 maritime patrol aircraft was cancelled due to over spending and missing deadlines. Other reductions saw total manpower reduced by 5,000 personnel to a trained strength of 33,000 and the early retirement of the Joint Force Harrier aircraft, the BAE Harrier GR7/GR9 . In recent years, fighter aircraft on Quick Reaction Alert (QRA) have been increasingly required to scramble in response to Russian Air Force aircraft approaching British airspace. On 24 January 2014, in
38930-514: The law. On the other hand, Corsican (a language spoken on the French island of Corsica ) is closely related to medieval Tuscan , from which Standard Italian derives and evolved. The differences in the evolution of Latin in the different regions of Italy can be attributed to the natural changes that all languages in regular use are subject to, and to some extent to the presence of three other types of languages: substrata, superstrata, and adstrata . The most prevalent were substrata (the language of
39159-466: The light cruiser Muzio Attendolo was sent with two destroyers from Naples to Messina . At an afternoon meeting the surface ships were discussed again, the risk of attack from Malta-based aircraft led Cavallero to decide that the fleet could not be risked without sufficient protection by aircraft. The decision was taken to attack the convoy with submarines between Algiers and the Balearic Islands , torpedo boats between Cap Bon and Pantelleria and then
39388-415: The local Regia Aeronautica commanders but conducted its attacks separately. Supermarina , the Italian Navy headquarters, considered four contingencies, that the Allies would use their naval strength to protect a convoy, the main Allied battle fleet would sortie to provoke a fleet action, to use a powerful covering force for a convoy to force a passage to the north of Pantelleria , instead of turning west at
39617-447: The local air commander since July, warned that there remained only a few weeks' supply of aviation fuel. The British Admiralty had the fast minelayer HMS Welshman converted to carry fuel and submarines were pressed into service to run supplies of aviation fuel, anti-aircraft ammunition and torpedoes through the blockade, to keep the remaining aircraft operational. The First Lord of the Admiralty Albert Alexander and Admiral of
39846-407: The long-range bombers based at Derna were alerted to move to Benghazi or Tripoli, supported by Ju 52 transport aircraft. Panzerarmee Afrika prepared detachments to repel landings and moved forces to the Sollum –Mersa Matruh area, to defend the coast east of Tobruk. At 07:00, all ship movements from North Africa to Italy and the Aegean were suspended and by late afternoon, the British knew that
40075-560: The loss of one FAA fighter. The German crews made extravagant claims but did little damage and three Italian reconnaissance aircraft were also shot down. Beaufighters returning from a raid on Sardinia saw the 7th Cruiser Division (Da Zara) at sea and raised the alarm. The cruisers had sailed from Cagliari into the Tyrrhenian Sea at 08:10 on 11 August, escorted by the destroyers Maestrale , Alfredo Oriani and Vincenzo Gioberti , to rendezvous with Muzio Attendolo from Naples. Early on 12 August, Trieste sailed from Genoa for Naples with
40304-460: The loss of only one merchant ship. From January 1941 to August 1942, 46 ships had delivered 320,000 long tons (330,000 t) but 25 ships had been sunk and modern, efficient, merchant ships, naval and air forces had been diverted from other routes for long periods; 31 supply runs by submarines had been conducted. Reinforcements for Malta included 19 costly aircraft carrier ferry operations ( Club Runs ) to deliver fighters. From August 1940 to
40533-437: The masters of the merchant ships on board his flagship, HMS Nigeria to brief them. A similar meeting was held with radio operators of the merchantmen to explain fleet communications and procedures. Envelopes marked "Not to be opened until 08:00 hours August 10" were handed to the ships' masters, containing personal messages signed by the First Lord of the Admiralty wishing the masters " God Speed ". The convoy sailed from
40762-438: The maximum number of operational aircraft to a hundred Spitfires, thirty-six Beaufighters, thirty Beauforts, three Wellingtons, two Liberators, two Baltimores and three FAA Albacores and Swordfish. The convoy was named WS.21S ( Winston's Specials were troop convoys from Britain to Suez via the Cape of Good Hope ). After the usual convoy conference just before sailing, Burrough met with the Convoy Commodore , A. G. Venables and
40991-412: The nation was unified in 1861. Italian is a Romance language , a descendant of Vulgar Latin (colloquial spoken Latin). Standard Italian is based on Tuscan , especially its Florentine dialect , and is, therefore, an Italo-Dalmatian language , a classification that includes most other central and southern Italian languages and the extinct Dalmatian . According to Ethnologue , lexical similarity
41220-420: The next day and briefly exchanged fire with the Italian destroyer Lanzerotto Malocello which was minelaying. The Italian ship showed French recognition lights and the British destroyers ended the engagement; Force Y arrived at Gibraltar at about 10:00 on 14 August.) The Germans and Italians planned separately and although they co-operated to an extent, Fliegerkorps II in Sicily co-ordinated plans with
41449-420: The next day. The torpedo- and dive-bombers were sent to Pantelleria to fly with the 51° Gruppo CT (MC.202s) and avoid the problems of co-ordination when aircraft flew from different bases. Four aircraft were sent on reconnaissance sorties; four of the Italian Ju 87s of 102° Gruppo BT were found to lack long-range tanks and torpedoes could not be attached to six SM.84s. Fulmars from Victorious shot down
41678-450: The night the Axis airfields in Sardinia were attacked by B-24 Liberators and Beaufighters , which set a hangar on fire and destroyed several aircraft; a commando raid the same night on airfield in Sicily failed. On the night of 11/12 August, the Italian 7th and 3rd Cruiser divisions and 17 destroyers sailed from Cagliari, Messina and Naples to engage the British convoy. The RAF at the Malta Operations Room sent orders in plain language to
41907-507: The northern entrance to the Skerki Bank, some arrayed north-west of Cap Bon, to co-operate with aircraft. An Italian submarine was to patrol west of Malta, one off Navarino in Greece and three more about 87 nmi (100 mi; 161 km) west-south-west of Crete. From June 1940 to April 1942, the Regia Marina had laid about 2,320 sea mines between Cap Granitola at the south-west end of Sicily and Pantelleria, 1,020 mines between Pantelleria and Ras el Mustafa, Tunisia, 6,880 mines between
42136-431: The northern sector of UK airspace, while Coningsby covers the southern sector. Typhoon pilot Flight Lieutenant Noel Rees describes how QRA duty works. "At the start of the scaled QRA response, civilian air traffic controllers might see on their screens an aircraft behaving erratically, not responding to their radio calls, or note that it's transmitting a distress signal through its transponder. Rather than scramble Typhoons at
42365-408: The number of printing presses in Italy grew rapidly and by the year 1500 reached a total of 56, the biggest number of printing presses in all of Europe. This enabled the production of more pieces of literature at a lower cost and Italian, as the dominant language, spread. Italian became the language used in the courts of every state in the Italian Peninsula , as well as the prestige variety used on
42594-423: The occasion on 10 July 2018 with a flypast over London consisting of 103 aircraft. Between March 2020 and 2022, the RAF assisted with the response efforts to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom as part of Operation Rescript . This saw the service provide repatriation flights and aeromedical evacuations of COVID-19 patients, drivers and call-handlers to support ambulance services and medics to assist with
42823-630: The openness of vowels, the length of the consonants, and influence of the local language (for example, in informal situations andà , annà and nare replace the standard Italian andare in the area of Tuscany, Rome and Venice respectively for the infinitive "to go"). There is no definitive date when the various Italian variants of Latin—including varieties that contributed to modern Standard Italian—began to be distinct enough from Latin to be considered separate languages. One criterion for determining that two language variants are to be considered separate languages rather than variants of
43052-423: The operation]). About 20 Junkers Ju 88s from Fliegerkorps X on Crete arrived at Sicily on 11 August, for operations the next morning and another eight Ju 88s arrived from Crete the same day, after completing convoy escort operations in the Aegean. The Regia Marina had four battleships, three heavy and ten light cruisers, twenty-one destroyers, twenty-eight torpedo boats and sixty-four submarines but most of
43281-436: The orders for the operation. Several smaller operations were also planned, to be carried out concurrently with Pedestal. The convoy comprised 14 merchant vessels , the most important being Ohio , the only large, fast tanker available, a US ship loaned to the British, with a British crew. As insurance against the loss of Ohio and its 12,000 long tons (12,000 t) of oil, the other ships were to carry fuel in drums. The convoy
43510-584: The original inhabitants), as the Italian dialects were most probably simply Latin as spoken by native cultural groups. Superstrata and adstrata were both less important. Foreign conquerors of Italy that dominated different regions at different times left behind little to no influence on the dialects. Foreign cultures with which Italy engaged in peaceful relations with, such as trade, had no significant influence either. Throughout Italy, regional varieties of Standard Italian, called Regional Italian , are spoken. Regional differences can be recognized by various factors:
43739-599: The other bouncing off the deck and exploding over the sea. The first ten SM.84 bombers carried electric Motobomba FFF torpedoes which were designed to travel in an increasing spiral. The torpedoes were dropped 2,000 yd (1,800 m) from the ships, which used the evasive manoeuvres practised in Operation Berserk to escape. Between the second and third waves of Regia Aeronautica aircraft, 37 Ju 88s from Kampfgeschwader 54 (KG 54) and Kampfgeschwader 77 (KG 77) attacked, having flown from Sicily with 21 Bf 109 fighter escorts, after using radio-countermeasures to blind
43968-442: The other damaged ships turned back to Gibraltar, escorted by HMS Derwent , HMS Wilton and HMS Bicester . KG 54 and KG 77 dispatched 30 Ju 88s with seven He 111 torpedo-bombers from 6/KG 26 escorted by six Bf 110s of 6/ ZG 26 and the destroyers were still with the damaged ships and when the raid was detected by radar at 20:35; six long-range Beaufighters of 248 Squadron arrived and were also fired on by
44197-403: The other hand, almost everyone still speaks the Corsican idiom , which, due to its linguistic proximity to the Italian standard language, appears both linguistically as an Italian dialect and therefore as a carrier of Italian culture, despite the French government's decades-long efforts to cut Corsica off from the Italian motherland. Italian was the official language in Monaco until 1860, when it
44426-416: The physical defence and maintenance of sovereignty of the British Overseas Territories and enable the UK to conduct expeditionary military operations . Although command and oversight of the bases is provided by Strategic Command , the airfield elements are known as RAF stations. Four RAF squadrons are based overseas. No. 17 Test and Evaluation Squadron is based at Edwards Air Force Base , California, in
44655-406: The population of Italy could speak Standard Italian. He reports that in 1951 that percentage had risen to 87%. The ability to speak Italian did not necessarily mean it was in everyday use, and most people (63.5%) still usually spoke their native dialects. In addition, other factors such as mass emigration, industrialization, and urbanization, and internal migrations after World War II , contributed to
44884-469: The proliferation of Standard Italian. The Italians who emigrated during the Italian diaspora beginning in 1861 were often of the uneducated lower class, and thus the emigration had the effect of increasing the percentage of literates, who often knew and understood the importance of Standard Italian, back home in Italy. A large percentage of those who had emigrated also eventually returned to Italy, often more educated than when they had left. Although use of
45113-465: The pronunciation of stressed "e", and of "s" between vowels in many words: e.g. va bene "all right" is pronounced [vabˈbɛːne] by a Roman (and by any standard Italian speaker), [vaˈbeːne] by a Milanese (and by any speaker whose native dialect lies to the north of the La Spezia–Rimini Line ); a casa "at home" is [akˈkaːsa] for Roman, [akˈkaːsa] or [akˈkaːza] for standard, [aˈkaːza] for Milanese and generally northern. In contrast to
45342-415: The publication of Agnolo Monosini 's Latin tome Floris italicae linguae libri novem in 1604 followed by the first Italian dictionary in 1612. An important event that helped the diffusion of Italian was the conquest and occupation of Italy by Napoleon in the early 19th century (who was himself of Italian-Corsican descent). This conquest propelled the unification of Italy some decades after and pushed
45571-420: The referendum that allowed France to annex Savoy and Nice, and a group of his followers (among the Italian Savoyards ) took refuge in Italy in the following years. Corsica passed from the Republic of Genoa to France in 1769 after the Treaty of Versailles . Italian was the official language of Corsica until 1859. Giuseppe Garibaldi called for the inclusion of the " Corsican Italians " within Italy when Rome
45800-445: The remnants of the convoy would be finished off by the 3rd and 7th Cruiser divisions General Rino Corso Fougier , the Regia Aeronautica chief of staff, had reported that 40 modern fighters and bombers were available and that the day before, 101 aircraft had transferred from Italy to Sardinia and Sicily, bringing the total to 247 but Superaereo would not begin attacks until 13 August. Radio-controlled bombers would be used to crash onto
46029-459: The rendezvous became Force J and the carrier Indomitable and its escorts from Freetown were called Force K . During Operation Berserk, all the carriers and escorts became Force G ; Force R was made up of the fleet refuelling vessels RFA Brown Ranger and Dingledale , escorted by four corvettes and an ocean-going tug, RFA Abbeydale a Dale-class oiler ; escorts were named Force W also for Operation Berserk, Force X formed
46258-419: The same aircraft type. Some schools operate with only one squadron, and have an overall training throughput which is relatively small; some, like No. 3 Flying Training School , have responsibility for all Elementary Flying Training (EFT) in the RAF, and all RAF aircrew will pass through its squadrons when they start their flying careers. No. 2 Flying Training School and No. 6 Flying Training School do not have
46487-407: The ship eight minutes later 70 nmi (130 km; 81 mi) south of Cape Salinas , 80 nmi (150 km; 92 mi) north of Algiers. The destroyers HMS Lookout , HMS Laforey and the tug Jaunty rescued 929 men of the complement of 1,160 but 231 men and all but four Sea Hurricanes (in the air during the sinking) were lost, about 20 per cent of the fighter cover for
46716-399: The ships being short of fuel and then moved south in two squadrons, preceded by the torpedo-boats Climene and Centauro . British reconnaissance aircraft from Malta had flown over Italian ports, a Spitfire pilot saw that the 3rd Cruiser Division had left port and at 18:54 a Baltimore crew saw the Italian ships rendezvous. On Malta, Park was not disturbed until the convoy and escort losses of
46945-422: The staffing of hospitals, testing units and vaccination centres. Under Operation Broadshare , the RAF has also been involved with COVID-19 relief operations overseas, repatriating stranded nationals and delivering medical supplies and vaccines to British Overseas Territories and military installations. The UK's 20-year long operations in Afghanistan came to an end in August 2021, seeing the largest airlift since
47174-402: The starboard side of the convoy, escorted by 12 Re.2001 fighters and 21 SM.79s and 12 Re.2001s from the port side, all the bombers aiming for the merchant ships. The second wave had been delayed by 15 minutes due to a shortage of mechanics for the Re.2001s and only 31 aircraft could take off. The bombers were met by an anti-aircraft barrage, the merchantmen took evasive action and none was hit by
47403-402: The sun, hit the flight deck twice and near-missed three times, with 2,200 lb (1,000 kg) bombs, killing fifty and wounding 59 men and seriously damaging the ship, which caught fire and slowed to 17 kn (31 km/h; 20 mph), leaving Victorious as the last operational carrier. By 20:30, Indomitable had worked up to 28.5 kn (52.8 km/h; 32.8 mph) but the damage to
47632-444: The tankers Dingledale and Brown Ranger of Force R by dawn. (Previous Malta convoys had refuelled on arrival but now the island had no oil to spare.) The convoy was south of the Balearic Islands on course for Cap Bon at daybreak and at about 06:20, a U-boat sighted the convoy. At 08:15 a Luftwaffe reconnaissance aircraft reported that the convoy was 95 nmi (176 km; 109 mi) north-west of Algiers; fifteen minutes later,
47861-401: The teachings of the Roman Catholic Church began to be understood from new perspectives as humanists —individuals who placed emphasis on the human body and its full potential—began to shift focus from the church to human beings themselves. The continual advancements in technology play a crucial role in the diffusion of languages. After the invention of the printing press in the 15th century,
48090-410: The title Divina , were read throughout the peninsula and his written dialect became the "canonical standard" that all educated Italians could understand. Dante is still credited with standardizing the Italian language. In addition to the widespread exposure gained through literature, the Florentine dialect also gained prestige due to the political and cultural significance of Florence at the time and
48319-421: The total population of the country. In Australia, Italian is the second most spoken foreign language after Chinese, with 1.4% of the population speaking it as their home language. The main Italian-language newspapers published outside Italy are the L'Osservatore Romano ( Vatican City ), the L'Informazione di San Marino ( San Marino ), the Corriere del Ticino and the laRegione Ticino ( Switzerland ),
48548-400: The use of the Regia Aeronautica (Italian Air Force) for the protection of convoys to North Africa. The Italian Navy resisted all German attempts to integrate its operations; ships in different squadrons never trained together and Supermarina (Italian Naval High Command) constantly over-ruled subordinate commanders. Admiralty planning for Operation Pedestal began in late July 1942, under
48777-555: The war was the strategic bombing campaign against Germany by Bomber Command. While RAF bombing of Germany began almost immediately upon the outbreak of war at first it was ineffectual; it was only later, particularly under the leadership of Air Chief Marshal Harris , that these attacks became increasingly devastating, from early 1943 onward, as new technology and greater numbers of superior aircraft became available. The RAF adopted night-time area bombing on German cities such as Hamburg and Dresden . Night time area bombing constituted
49006-430: The working languages of the Council of Europe . It is the third-most-widely spoken native language in the European Union (13% of the EU population) and it is spoken as a second language by 13.4 million EU citizens (3%). Including Italian speakers in non-EU European countries (such as Switzerland, Albania and the United Kingdom ) and on other continents, the total number of speakers is approximately 85 million. Italian
49235-458: Was a costly failure. Only two merchant ships from Harpoon reached the island; the Vigorous convoy was forced to turn back and several convoy escorts and many merchantmen, including the only tanker in Harpoon, were sunk. By August, the fortnightly (two-weekly) ration on Malta for one person was 14 oz (400 g) sugar, 7 oz (200 g) fats, 10.5 oz (300 g) bread and 14 oz (400 g) of corned beef. An adult male worker had
49464-514: Was able to keep up but this left Force X with Manchester as the only undamaged cruiser. Bronzo reported that it had sunk Deucalion and the captain of Kenya described the state of the convoy as "chaotic". At 21:30, the commander of Alagi reported that he had sunk the merchant ship Empire Hope and damaged Kenya and that Italian language Italian ( italiano , pronounced [itaˈljaːno] , or lingua italiana , pronounced [ˈliŋɡwa itaˈljaːna] )
49693-439: Was also introduced to Somalia through colonialism and was the sole official language of administration and education during the colonial period but fell out of use after government, educational and economic infrastructure were destroyed in the Somali Civil War . Italian is also spoken by large immigrant and expatriate communities in the Americas and Australia. Although over 17 million Americans are of Italian descent , only
49922-419: Was annexed to the Kingdom of Italy , but King Victor Emmanuel II did not agree to it. Italian is generally understood in Corsica by the population resident therein who speak Corsican , which is an Italo-Romance idiom similar to Tuscan. Francization occurred in Nice case, and caused a near-disappearance of the Italian language as many of the Italian speakers in these areas migrated to Italy. In Corsica, on
50151-517: Was approached at 16:30 by Emo , which manoeuvred into position to fire torpedoes at a carrier from 2,200 yd (2,000 m); a sudden course change led Franco to change targets, launch four torpedoes and dive. The convoy had changed course again and the torpedoes missed; observers on Tartar saw the torpedo tracks and raised the alarm. Lookout sped towards a periscope, which was that of Avorio moving into an attack position, and forced it to dive, spoiling its attack; at 17:40, Lookout returned to
50380-423: Was continued by the V bombers into the 1980s and until 1998 by the Panavia Tornado GR1 . For much of the Cold War the primary role of the RAF was the defence of Western Europe against potential attack by the Soviet Union , with many squadrons based in West Germany . The main RAF bases in RAF(G) were RAF Brüggen , RAF Gutersloh , RAF Laarbruch and RAF Wildenrath – the only air defence base in RAF(G). With
50609-400: Was delayed by technical difficulties caused by the flight deck, which sloped upwards to a point amidships. A Spitfire made a practice take-off, with wooden wedges in the flaps to ensure a 25° angle and Furious steaming at 30 kn (56 km/h; 35 mph), into a 10 kn (19 km/h; 12 mph) wind. The Spitfire was thrown into the air by the rise on the flight deck, bounced onto
50838-407: Was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, on the merger of the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS). Following the Allied victory over the Central Powers in 1918, the RAF emerged as the largest air force in the world at the time. Since its formation, the RAF has played a significant role in British military history . In particular, during
51067-484: Was having boiler trouble which slowed Force Z to 18 kn (33 km/h; 21 mph) but because of the number of aircraft involved in the Axis attacks, Syfret thought that there could be no more before dark and that the danger at the Skerki Bank would come from after dawn. About forty minutes after the turn a Luftwaffe reconnaissance aircraft reported the new course; Pedestal was about 250 nmi (290 mi; 460 km) from Malta with no local air cover, because of
51296-441: Was hit on the stern, sending crewmen flying through the air. The ship was scuttled the following day. A final Axis attack with twelve SM.79s and 28 Ju 87s cost two Ju 87s shot down and two damaged for no Allied loss; after returning to Pantelleria, the Axis aircraft were strafed by three Beaufighters, which flamed a Luftwaffe fuel depot, destroyed a Ju 52 and damaged two SM79s and an SM.84, also killing an Italian pilot caught on
51525-443: Was mirrored by a decline in the use of the dialects. An increase in literacy was one of the main driving factors (one can assume that only literates were capable of learning Standard Italian, whereas those who were illiterate had access only to their native dialect). The percentage of literates rose from 25% in 1861 to 60% in 1911, and then on to 78.1% in 1951. Tullio De Mauro , an Italian linguist, has asserted that in 1861 only 2.5% of
51754-406: Was replaced by the French. This was due to the annexation of the surrounding County of Nice to France following the Treaty of Turin (1860) . It formerly had official status in Montenegro (because of the Venetian Albania ), parts of Slovenia and Croatia (because of the Venetian Istria and Venetian Dalmatia ), parts of Greece (because of the Venetian rule in the Ionian Islands and by
51983-509: Was thought to consist of thirteen freighters of 105,000 long tons (107,000 t), protected by ten to sixteen fighters and plenty of anti-aircraft guns. The Italian submarine Brin was driven off by destroyers and at 09:30 a Sunderland flying boat damaged Giada off Algiers. At 13:34 another Sunderland from 202 Squadron caused more damage but Giada shot down the flying boat before heading for Valencia (until 14 August) with one dead and eight wounded crewmen on board. The convoy
52212-459: Was to be protected by two battleships , three aircraft carriers , seven cruisers , thirty-two destroyers and seven submarines, the largest escort force yet. The combined group was named Force F ; the convoy and escorts from Britain as far as the rendezvous, became Force P ; the aircraft carriers Victorious , Argus and escorts were named Force M on the voyage to the meeting point. The aircraft carrier Eagle and its escort from Gibraltar to
52441-413: Was torpedoed and set ablaze, later to be destroyed by an ammunition detonation, Rochester Castle was damaged and Empire Hope was sunk by a destroyer after rescuing the crew. At 21:05 Alagi fired a salvo of four torpedoes at Kenya , the tracks of which were seen on Port Chalmers and reported. Kenya turned sharply and avoided three of the torpedoes but the fourth hit aft on the starboard side; Kenya
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