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 28la 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.
