Italian Forces

An Italian bomber’s salvage

IMC Archives

Group shot of Italian personnel committed to salvage of a Savoia-Marchetti S.79 bomber seized by the German Forces after the armistice of the Kingdom of Italy with Allies, not recognized both by the III Reich and, afterwards, by the Benito Mussolini’s Repubblica Sociale Italiana (Italian Social Republic). Some former Italian Regia Aeronautica’s airplanes seized by the Germans and transferred in Germany was switched to Aviazione Nazionale Repubblicana, afterwards Aeronautica Nazionale Repubblicana, or ANR, after their salvage by Italian personnel. As the S.79 of this photo, photographed likely in Austria or Southern Germany. The personnel not seem military (note the man on center with civilian clothes) but, likely, is composed by workers and technicians of aeronautical factories, in this case Savoia-Marchetti, charged of the overhauling and re-establishment of the flight conditions of the plane before its return on Northern Italy. Victor Sierra