Savoia-Marchetti S.M.79 Sparviero

Developed from an eight-seat commercial airliner of 1934, the three-engine Savoia-Marchetti S.M.79 Sparviero entered service as a conventional medium bomber with the Regia Aeronautica in 1937, and served operationally with the Aviacion del Tercio alongside the Nationalist forces during the Spanish Civil War. Also in 1937 the S.M.79 embarked on trials at Gorizia as a torpedo bomber, being equipped to launch a single 450mm naval torpedo from an offset rack under the fuselage. The following year trials with paired torpedoes led to the adoption of the S.M.79-II aircraft as standard torpedo bomber equipment. Following Italy's entry into the war in June 1940, when Sparvieri (sparrowhawks) equipped 14 stormi based in Italy, Sicily, Sardinia and Libya, the aircraft was constantly in action in the anti-shipping role, its first action being an attack by 19 S.M.79s of the 9° and 46° Stormi on French shipping off the Riviera coast on 13/14 June.

During the invasion of Crete S.M.79s of the 92° Gruppo and the 28l^a Squadriglia were active against Allied shipping in the Aegean, after which most aircraft were redeployed to Libya for operations against British naval forces and convoys in the Central Mediterranean as well as the naval base at Malta. Among the ships of the Royal Navy sunk by S.M.79s in the Mediterranean were the destroyers HMS Husky, HMS Jaguar, HMS Legion, and HMS Southwall, while the battleship HMS Malaya and the carriers HMS Indomitable and HMS Victorious were all struck by torpedoes launched by the Italian torpedo bombers; the majority of these ships were hit during the attacks on the Operation 'Pedestal' convoy which sailed with 14 merchant ships and heavy escort for the relief of Malta. Among the famous Italian pilots of the Sparviero were men such as Capitani Buscaglia, Cimicchi, di Bella and Melley, An improved version was the S.M.79-III without the ventral gondola but with a forward-firing 20mm cannon.

Despite the obvious value of the S.M.79 to the Axis forces in the Mediterranean, the aircraft (like so many Italian aircraft) suffered from poor servicing facilities, and it was unusual for even as much as half the available strength of Sparvieri to be fit for operations at any given time. Nevertheless the S.M.79 was acknowledged as being among the best torpedo aircraft to serve in the Mediterranean theatre during World War II.

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tricci57, e-mail, 30.03.2024 GrahamClayton

Could you provide the source of this information?
Thanks

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GrahamClayton, e-mail, 01.04.2024 tricci57

Christopher Shores, Giovanni Massimello, Russell Guest, Frank Olynyk, Winfried Bock, Andy Thomas "A History of the Mediterranean Air War, 1940-1945 - Volume 1: North Africa"

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tricci57, e-mail, 31.03.2024 FRANZ

Franz ...... the domestic translation by the aircraft crews was: the cursed hunchback. Maledetto in English is "cursed".
The g word you used is cursing word even in Italian, and
you misspelled "hunchback" you missed the "H".

maybe some Italian language classes would come in handy.

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