Marinos Μητραλέξης: the pilot “kamikaze” of the Saga 40

“He approached a young Greek Aviator, smiling, stretched out his hand, saluted, and told them that his name is Marinos Μητραλέξης, and that was the one that broke, and welcomed them in Greece.”
The first kamikaze pilot in the Second World War, the Marinos Μητραλέξης, had made a little earlier the infamous ramming of an Italian bomber on November 2, 1940. The pilot was awarded with the Golden Medal for Valor in wartime.
“I said I don’t want to die in bed, I want to die on the plane. Don’t you think that says it all? He loved the country,” says Anna Μητραλέξη in a story of Giannis Sotiropoulos in the tv show “With Virtue and Courage.”
A φωτοχόπαιδο started from the village Speak of Messenia, became an aviator and in the 24 years the Glory of the married and the Story of the Air Force wrote with golden letters his name.
2 November 1940: Alarm has meant at the airport of “Macedonia”. Squadrons of Italian bombers heading for Thessaloniki. The reaction of 22 Squadron was direct. Formation of aircraft PZL of our Air Force taking off with a view to intercept the aerial invaders.
Fifteen Italian bombers Cant Ζ1007 bis Alcione with an escort of seven squadrons of the 50th Independent Σμηναρχίας BT, they approached in Thessaloniki, greece with the mission of the bombing. The Greek PZL identify the Italian bombers and begins a fierce dogfight. The dogfight is moved a bit outside of Thessaloniki, in the area of Lagadas.
Among the operators, and the young man, then lieutenant Marinos Μητραλέξης which is thrown with rabies in the dogfight, braving the crossfire of the Italian bomber.
When his ammunition was exhausted, he does something παράτολομο, which has never happened before in the world’s air time.
“According to the report of the other pilot, lieutenant Μητραλέξης draws, gaining altitude, then perform a pounce large-angle and speed against the Italian bomber and with a precision movement is standing behind him and literally grinds the tail with the propeller of the aircraft,” says the lieutenant colonel r.a Nikos Pouliasis.
“This was the first heroic act happened in the air Force in 1940. For this and referred to, was written in all the newspapers, and it was even mentioned in the papers abroad, but and the rival,” adds Nikos Pouliasis,.
“He hadn’t thought of before. Just because at that time they said that I need to drop a plane, and had no ammo, put the same of the plane to fall on the Italian,” remembers Anna Μητραλέξη, to continue that keeps today two precious talismans of the man. “The first is the Golden Ανδρείον Excellence of which was given in an act of exceeding the meaning of welcome, although duty. The second is the identity, the Italian who shot his plane.” The Italian was the operator Marecsiallo Brussoto Garibaldo.
From the infamous ramming of an Italian bomber Cant Z 1007 (code: PM 22381), the Italian immediately lost his life, while the other four caught up and left the aircraft by parachute, and as tough as it seemed the Marinos in the air, the knight turned out to be on the ground, when the welcome I had from Greece. The aircraft of the Μητραλέξη with distorted the helix, held earlier forced landing near the site where it crashed the Italian bomber. There he realizes that the five-member crew, four of them are in one piece, arresting them after they have been introduced and welcomed military, prefixing his revolver, embarking in a car of the Gendarmerie and leads them to the Military Administration of Thessaloniki.
On 19 September 1948 and at the age of 32, tyr Μητραλέξης lost his life in the execution of air force mission recognition in the Aegean, when the aircraft Oxford, in which he was riding with the lieutenant colonel Citizen Demosthenes and major Γαλανάκο Dimitrios, crashed due to failure of one engine in the sea close to Tinos and sank in the azure waters of the Aegean sea.
“My son then was 19 months and my daughter 19 days,” remembers Anna Μητραλέξη. “Of course he beat you to it and saw it and believed that it is very happy, but didn’t get a chance to see them grow up.”
The Graphic designer Tasos Katsikas, with the use of modern technology, made 71 years after the first three-dimensional representation of that incredible even today air achievement Marino Μητραλέξη.
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