Italian Forces

I-LAST: a career ended at Prague

www.crash-aerien.aero

Hyères-Le Palyvestre, France, July 1940: the Savoia-Marchetti SM.75 which had transported member of the Italian Armistice Commission after the France’s surrender. The plane is an Ala Littoria airline’s civil passenger transport aircraft transferred under military control after the airlines militarization and the establishment, 4 June 1940, of the Comando Servizi Aerei Speciali-CSAS (Special Air Services Command). In particular this plane, already camouflaged and with military marking, is one of Ala Littoria’s SM.75 switched to 147th Gruppo Trasporto (147th Transport Group) based at Littoria airport (today Latina) and organized upon three Squadriglie: 601st, 602nd and 603rd. This SM.75 was registered in the Italian Civil Air Registry as Savoia-Marchetti SM.75C, s/n 32043, civil marking I-LAST, owner Ala Littoria, Certificate of Registration released 17 October 1939. After the Italy’s armistice (8 September 1943), the I-LAST was seized by the Lufwaffe, registered on 10 November 1943 in the German Register as D-ATAD and allocated to Luftflotte 14’s Ergänzungs-Transportgeschwader based Prague-Ruzyne airport likely for transport mission in the Eastern Front. Probably destroyed on 1944 in the same airport, but the exactly fate of this plane is unknown. Victor Sierra