Italian Uniforms in the Chinese theater

[Mike]

Saw an interesting history video about the Italians fighting the Japanese in China. While the Beijing  garrison despite being well equipped ended up surrendering, I always enjoyed the what ifs. Meanwhile Italian troops at the radio station fought for 24 hours and scared the Japanese army to the point that it brought overwhelming force to the Beijing fight. Its very interesting story. Some went on to fight besides the Japanese and others went to internment camps. This would be a neat historical force to build. The Italian navy has the record of shooting down the final US plane in the Pacific theater taking out a Mitchell bomber.

 

To the point, what uniforms should these army troops be wearing? Tropical like the African campaign or mainland Italian?

[invisible officer]

The ca. 100 men at the Beijing Radio Station in Italian concession under Lt. Cmdr. Baldassarre  had been a mix from army and navy.  The Navy officers and OR wore white naval tropical dress, the OR had a Khaki drill one that some may have worn. The army guys wore  the standard tropical khaki  uniform . They had Tropical hats in Khaki.   They had only light arms.

3/4 decided to fight for the Japanese following capitulation.

 

The 600 under  Frigate captain Carlo dell’Acqua at Tientsin had the same mix, most being from army. They had  just 300 rifles, 50 pistols, 50 Breda and Fiat MG, four guns and four Lancia armored cars,

 

Here just  170 men pledged their allegiance to the new Fascist Italian Social Republic and  fought alongside the Germans and Japanese for the rest of the war.

 

 

 

The B-25 Story is only half right. The submarine Torelli  shot it down August, 30th, 1945. The crew was mixed  Japanese-German, with a few Italian OR, the gun Crew was German. It was post German capitulation (!) and just 20 Italians still served with the Japanes navy.

 

 

 

• This reply was modified 3 years, 9 months ago by invisible officer.

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