1941: a year of wandering

Once back in Italy, the 2º Stormo deployed to Mirafiori airfield (Turin) on 20 January 1941 with 68 pilots and 119 maintenance crew; the Wing was temporarily without aircraft, but the aircrew hoped to receive the new Macchi C202. Unfortunately they only got twelve CR 42 from the 157º Gruppo and with these old biplanes the Unit began to patrol the major industrial centers in North Italy: Turin, Milan, Genoa and Savona.

Finally at the end of February the Wing received sixty-two Macchi C200 and further ten CR-42. From that time up to November 1941, the 2nd Wing made heavy scramble alert missions and deployed to several airfields: Novi Ligure, Venegono, Albenga, Piacenza, Orio al Serio, Jesi, Milan-Linate, performing surveillance missions up to the Adriatic coast using temporarily also the 93ª Squadriglia from the 54º Stormo.

On 25 November 1941 the 8º Gruppo deployed again to Bengasi K3 airfield, starting a second tour in North Africa; the 13º Gruppo remained in Ciampino, Rome, waiting for deploying to Lybia too and rejoining the 8º. At the beginning of 1942 the Stormo Headquarters was still in Turin: it deployed to K3, together with the 13º Gruppo, on 14 February.