LUCA RUFFATO

Luca Ruffato was an architect who graduated from the University of Architecture in Venice. For the early part of his academic career he served as an assistant-professor within a degree workshop, and as tutor in two international workshops activated by the University of Dortmund (Germany). For five years he worked as an architectural surveyor & designer with a firm specializing in archaeology as applied to the restoration of monumental and historic buildings.

An Italian by citizenship, since childhood Luca was fascinated by Japanese culture and history, and thirsted to learn more about that country. Whilst the steps leading to military conflict in WWII were sudden, the more he read from the Allied side, it became clear to him that there was a paucity of Japanese detail surrounding those events. Thus he developed a passion for researching and collecting original Japanese documents, the basis for any serious analysis of aerial operations.

With sadness we regret to announce that Luca passed away in 2013, shortly after 'Eagles of the Southern Sky' was published. Up unitl the time of his loss, Luca had also been working on an ambitious project; the history of aerial warfare in the South West Pacific Area from December 1941 to March 1942.

Luca also contributed to Dan E. Bailey’s ‘WWII wrecks of the Truk Lagoon’ (North Valley Diver Publications, CA 2000) and David L. Williams’ ‘Naval camouflage 1914-1945’ (Chatham Publishing, Kent, 2001). He authored numerous articles in specialist journals and supports research by a select coterie of associated Australian, Canadian, French, English and American authors. Luca was a member of ‘The Pacific Society’ and ‘Pacific Air War History Associates - PAWHA’, a dedicated international group of authors and researchers working in this specialist field.

Pacificwrecks.com has presented a more detailed memorial page to Luca and his life here.