Hello,
In my history lecture, my professor told us that in Italian aircraft was taken down with a spear by an Ethiopian, and that he had seen of video of the event taking place. Unfortunately, Google does not seem to have any information other than some very brief mentions of this occurring, by forum posters and the like.
Does anyone have any more info on this, or perhaps even know where I might be able to find this footage? I'm very curious to see what that might have looked like.
Thanks for any info you might be able to provide.
I have studied the campaign extensively, and as far as I know no Italian plane was brought down by a spear.
The Ethiopians used rifle and machine gun fire and also about 36 20mm Oerlikon AA guns against the Italians and brought down several machines that way, causing the Italians to increase the altitude of their bombers to about 4 000 feet to avoid ground fire.
There are several very unlikely circumstances that are required for your video to exist.
An Italian plane, probably a single-engined one, have to be flying so low and so slow that a thrown spear can hit the engine and disable it, or cut the wired to the control surfaces causing the plane to crash. While some of the Italian biplane fighters such as the Cr.30 or Cr.32 could be performing such duties, it would be flying at at least 150-200km/h during such a mission.
Due to the speed of the plane, the only way a man on the ground would be able to hit it with a thrown spear would be if he was standing directly in its way and threw it as the plane aproached him. The only reason the plane would be so low that it could be hit would be that it was strafing - standing up right in front of it, where it is shooting is extremely risky.
There are few moving images from the Ethiopian side - most are from foreign reporters showing off musters of the traditional chitet or feudal levy of the Ethiopian nobility, or the imperial guard. I know of no combat footage from the Ethiopian side during the campaign. But your scenario demands not only that someone with a film camera was present on the Ethiopian side, but also that he was filming during a combat situation and remained standing with the rather large film cameras of the time while a fighter (or other single-engined plane) was strafing the very area he was in.
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, but in this case I will remain very, very skeptic of such a video existing.
I had a friend who's father was stationed in Tunisia in the 50's. He once told me about an aircraft taken down by an Ethiopian spear. He also mentioned an Italian tanketta where the driver was killed by a spear.