Aviation of World War II

SM.75 "Marsupiale" - three-engined cantilever low-wing aircraft - maiden flight on November 6, 1937. The plane accommodated up to 30 passengers. Five aircraft of the first batch were delivered to Ala Littoria, one aircraft - to the Italian Ministry of Aviation, along with the aircraft of the Italian Air Force.

A total of 94 aircraft were produced.

Modifications

• SM.75 is the first serial modification.
• SM.76 - an upgraded version with Pratt & Whitney Twin Wasp engines, its fuselage was lengthened and widened, the wing design was changed, the capacity of the fuel tanks was increased
• SM.87 - double-float version of the SM.75 aircraft (1940). The power plant is three 1000 hp Fiat A.80 radial engines. from. (4 cars). All vehicles survived the 1940-1943 Allied campaign. and after the division of Italy became part of the RSI aviation.
• The SM.90 is the only prototype with three 1400 hp Alfa Romeo 135 radial engines. from. The fuselage length is increased to 23.9 m. it was planned to increase the commercial data of the transport aircraft, but in the future it was decided to abandon this option in favor of newer developments. In addition, after the war, there were a sufficient number of American military aircraft built on the basis of the DC-3 and perfectly coping with their tasks.

Combat use . At the beginning of World War II, in June 1940, all civil aircraft were transferred to the disposal of Regia Aeronautica. Part of the SM.75 was sent to the Corpo Aereo Italiano (Italian Air Corps), which was stationed in German-occupied Belgium and assisted in the air operation against Britain. Here "Savoy" performed transport functions supplying the corps from Italy. In addition to Belgium, they were used in the Greek operation and in North Africa, and also supplied the Italian army on the Eastern Front in the war against the Soviet Union.

In North Africa, all Italian transport aircraft entered the disposal of the newly created Servizi Aerei Speciali - SAS. During the first two months of fighting, the situation on the African front changed so much that the Italian Expeditionary Force, which unleashed the war, found itself in a defensive position. In such conditions, the question of supplying the retreating army was more acute than ever, and here the SAS, created in June 1940, was very useful. It consisted of 31 SM.75 aircraft and four Ju.52 / 3m aircraft, distributed among seven air groups located at airfields in Italy, Albania and Libya. The connected SM.82s carried Fiat CR.42 fighters to Africa, while the SM.75 carried equipment.

After the loss of East African possessions, Italian military aircraft no longer appeared in this sector of Africa. The only exception was the SM.75. In March 1942, a single SM.75GA, flying over Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia, dropped leaflets over the city of Asmara for the Italian population.

For SM.75, the war in Africa ended in a tragic epic with the removal of the Italian expeditionary corps. As for other transport aircraft (the SM.82 and Fiat G.12 also participated in the evacuation), flights across the Mediterranean Sea and, in general, being at airfields within the reach of allied aviation became very dangerous. The SM.75 is lucky in this respect. The losses of this type of aircraft were relatively small, while for the German Ju-52 / 3m and the huge Me.323, the Mediterranean became a real graveyard.

Photo	Description
	Drawing SM.75

Bibliography

• Military transport aircraft Savoia-Marchetti SM.75 / SM.90 "Marsupiale" / Andrey Krumkach /
• Military transport aircraft of the Second World War / V. Kotelnikov /

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July 07, 2020.
SM-75 "Marsupiale" - translated from Italian means "marsupial", probably got its name for the characteristic shape of the fuselage.