the first vampires arrived (and rested) in italy on September 25th, 1949 when five of DH100 RAF No.73 Squadron came from Malta to Milano-Linate airport for one acrobatic show.
Unfortunately all of them emergency landed because ran out of fuel on fields near the airport because of cloudy and heavy fog.
The VF345 landed without damages, VT813 and VT809 broke their undercarriage...
the others two after very hard landed, one of them finished in a ditch with a lot of damages...
the last one broke and lost its wings...
all four damages aircraft was given to the Italian air force(AMI) for tranning and fulfils the skills of the personal on these new airplanes. VF345 was ripped off by the RAF's technicians and sent to the Orio al Serio Airport for rebuild because they want to send this aircraft back to Malta... but after the first fly test this aircraft had emergency landed... this time made a lot of damages and didn't worth to repair then this airplane was given to the AMI too...
the AMI's tecnicians rebuilded "ex-novo" three new vampire from all good pieces that were left after all damaging but without engine because after engine revision and testing, for safety they decided to hold the project until the new engine arrive.
So Italian Air Force got three DH100 Vapire for free.