I recently took a trip to Canberra and visited the Australian War Memorial. One of the displays that impressed me was the captured Italian Anti-Aircraft cannon mounted on a Chevrolet truck.
The piece in question is a Breda 20mm Model 1935 anti-aircraft gun. These were captured in such large numbers in North Africa that they were used to equip Australia, British and some Free French units.
Fed by trays of 12 shells, the captured Breda’s were used in an anti-aircraft or ground support role. They could be fixed in position or mobile and mounted on trucks by units such as the Australian 3rd Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment and the British Long Range Desert Group (LRDG).
They were used widely by Italian and German forces and interestingly also mounted by Italy’s equivalent to the LRDG, the Auto – Saharan Companies (Compagnie Auto-Avio-Sahariane).
Contact between these two units was described as ‘The First Clash of Special Forces’ by Kuno Gross and Robert Chiavaretto. In January 1941 in southeastern Libya, the British LRDG were intercepted by the an Auto-Saharan unit in the Gebel Sherif valley.
“The enemy (Italians) who were forty-four strong in two armoured fighting vehicles and five trucks had the advantage of close co-operation with aircraft and of being armed with Breda guns (Auto-avio sahariana)”
— Ambush at Jebel Sherif – Official History of New Zealand in the Second World War 1939-45.
