Gruppo landed in Castelvetrano with 17 new machines (one crash landed on the Appennini Mountains); the units started operational service on 8 May, dropping 4AR mines. Before the end of August, five aircraft were lost and that same month the BR.20s departed Sicily. In the 16 months of their Malta campaign, 41 “Cicognas” were shot down or lost through accidents. The Fiat bombers returned for a short time in 1943 with attacks on Malta. Soviet Union Several BR.20s were sent to the Soviet Union in August 1942, to perform long-range reconnaissance and bombing sortie in support of CSIR, Italian Army on Eastern Front. On 3 August 1941, two BR-20s arrived in Ukraine and were assigned to 38a Squadriglia osservazione aerea (reconnaissance squadron) of 71° Gruppo. Three days later they had their baptism of fire, bombing enemy troops at Werch Mamor, along Don river. More BR.20s arrived on 5 September from 43° Stormo. Three of them were assigned to 116a Squadriglia. They usually flew lone bombing sorties, carrying 36 small-baskets of incendiary bombes to drop on enemy troops in urban areas. On 5 October, three Mikoyan Mig-1s and a Yakovlev Yak-1 attacked the BR.20 flown by Capitano Emilio d’Emilei. The Fiat crew claimed two Soviet fighters and the bomber managed to land back to airfield, in Kantemirovka, in Voronezh Oblast, but the pilot was wounded. The BR.20s were withdrawn from eastern Front in spring 1943, at first to Odessa and, subsequently, to Italy, on 13 April. Other fronts During the course of the war, BR.20s were used in Albania and Greece as well. They were also used extensively in Yugoslavia against Josip Broz Tito's partisans. Other BR.20s were used to drop food and other material to the Italian Army, often trapped in the Balkans, faced with Yugoslavian resistance. After the first year of war, the limitations of this type were evident. It was highly vulnerable to enemy attacks, as Japanese experience had shown in 1938, and the aircraft was replaced by the Cant Z.1007 and Savoia-Marchetti SM.84 in almost all operational units that had employed the BR.20. By 1943, when the Italian armistice was signed, many had been relegated to training, although 81 were with operational units, mostly in the Balkans and Italy; also later serving on the Eastern Front. Italy invaded Greece in October 1940, and deployed increasing numbers of BR.20s in attacks on Greece from bases in Italy and