Loading operation of a 500 kg bomb (990 lbs) into an Italian bomber S.79 through the winch on fuselage’s top. The winch lift outwards the bomb, hooked by the tail, up to the fuselage’s top and later lowered into the bomb rack inside the fuselage. The S.79 had different bombs racks interchangeable and depending of the bomb’s type: rack for two 500 kg bombs, rack for five 250 kg bombs, rack for twelve 100 kg bombs, up to twelve dispenser each for forty-nine 2 kg bomblets (thermos bombs), total 588 bomblets. Notice the open entry door with built-in boarding ladder on the fuselage’s left side. Victor Sierra

Loading a bomb

This picture, abstracted by the Savoia-Marchetti S.79’s technical manual, show the winch used for bomb’s loading into the bay of this Italian bomber aircraft. The winch, located behind the dorsal 12.7mm machine gun below a specific door, in the picture in open position, transfer the bomb, hooked into the tail in vertical position, from the ground to the bomb rack, the latter different depending on the bomb’s type. This practice was necessary because the bomb’s stowage inside the S.79 were vertical rather than horizontal, effect of the origin of the most famous WW2 Italian bomber, fast civil airliner, and of the resulting fuselage’s shape. Victor Sierra

A winch for the bombs

Cross-section of an Italian "Thermos" bomb; picture abstracted by "Italian and French Explosive Ordnance", Bureau of Ordnance (US Navy) publication 14 June 1946. “Thermos bomb” is the nickname of the Anti-personnel (AP) Bomb Manzolini, or 4 AR, for the Italians “Spezzone”, employed in Libya during the first phase of the war both by the S.79 (which used also the 2 kg “spezzoni”) and Breda 65 of the 50th Stormo Assalto. In substance a multipurpose mine scatterable by aircraft used against airfields, vehicles and personnel. The bomb was a cylinder with lenght 31 centimetre long and weight 3.68 kilograms. It could be fitted with a very sensitive motion-sensitive fuze that would detonate if any attempt was made to move it, and could be lethal in the open up to around 35 metres away. A later variant of the fuze introduced an additional time delayed detonation, which was triggered between 60 to 80 hours after. Victor Sierra