Savoia Staffel
An Italian type of airplane employed in large quantity and well appreciated by the Luftwaffe was the three engines transport aircraft Savoia-Marchetti S.82 (nicknamed Marsupiale/Marsupial by the Italian pilots). On 1941 the Luftwaffe purchased 110 S.82 for balance the heavy loss suffered by its transport units and for avoid additional workloads of its aeronautical industries broadly committed to production of combat planes. But only 45 S.82 was delivered before the Italy’s armistice (8 September 1943) and to complete the required amount the Germans seized after the Kingdom of Italy’s armistice many Regia Aeronautica’s planes plus many other still in Savoia-Marchetti’s plant included the remaining aircraft of the original Luftwaffe’s order. According a statistic of Generalquartiermaster der Luftwaffe dated 31 March 1944 the S.82 in service with the German Air Force were 182 increased to 231 on 30 June 1944, an amount evidently obtained adding the original order to Savoia-Marchetti to the planes both completed and both seized after the Italy’s armistice. The Luftwaffe’s main user of S.82 was the Transportfliegerstaffel 4 which, as Stabsstaffel of the III./TG 1, had the first Italian three engines plans already on 1942. The Transportfliegerstaffel 4, which replaced the original Stabstaffel disbanded on May 1943, was knew by the German crews as “Savoia Staffel” and, moved from Grosseto, its Italian base, to Germany, at Celle, Lower Saxony, employed its S.82 basically over all fronts, especially on Eastern Front where flew also the few S.81 and S.82 of the two Italian Transport Groups of the Repubblica Sociale Italiana’s air force. Victor Sierra
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://ww2incolor.com/gallery/german-air-force/47955/savoia-staffel
