When 11 pilots set out to fly from Rome to Tokyo a century ago, only two made it

One hundred years ago, on Valentine’s Day, 1920, 11 Italian aircraft – a selection of rickety-looking biplanes and one triplane – took off with their two-man crews from Rome, and headed towards Tokyo. Some of the first European fliers to attempt to reach East Asia by air, they were participating in the Raid Roma-Tokyo, an epic aerial endeavour dreamt up by Italian poet Gabriele D’Annunzio.

Of the 11 flight crews, only two made it all the way to Japan, arriving within an hour of each other in…