Photograph from overhead of bomber, likely an Italian Caproni Ca.1, a two-engined biplane.
"The men stay on the mountainside for eight days. When the skies clear on 18 June, the artillery opens up and the infantry attacks again, with air support from Caproni bombers. That afternoon the clouds return. The next day, men of the 52nd Division hack their way to the summit of Ortigara with daggers and bayonets, capturing a thousand prisoners and several guns. They hang on until the 25th, resisting bombardments and counter attacks, until stormtroopers sweep them off with gas and flame-throwers."
The Battle of Mount Ortigara, June 10 to 25, 1917, was fought on the Asiago Plateau, on Italy's northern border with Austria-Hungary by the Tirol. A year earlier, on May 14, 1916, the Austrians had launched the Asiago Offensive in the same region. Most of the land war between the two countries was fought on the Isonzo River, a rough and natural approximation of the border in Italy's northeast. Mount Ortigara is roughly 40 kilometers east of Trento, Italy (in 1917 Austria-Hungary) and 20 km north of Asiago. Mount Ortigara would end as another failed Italian offensive.
The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front, 1915-1919 by Mark Thompson, pp. 259–260, copyright © 2008 Mark Thompson, publisher: Basic Books, publication date: 2009
1917-06-18, 1917, June, Battle of Mount Otigara, Asiago plateau, Caproni, Caproni bomber
