SAVOIA MARCHETTI SM 82 Cangaru, the discovering of a dismantled fuselage

[jterny]

These are some photos of several discovered section structures of a dismantled Italian Savoia Marchetti SM 82 fuselage, in the fields around the ex Regia Aeronautica air base of Maritsa Rhodes Greece, during the late 80's.
The fuselage of this type of aircraft was originaly covered with fabric canvas and ply wood and remains of these materials were survived localy on structure.
The discovered fuselage sections in Rhodes, are belonging most possible to the same aircraft which dismantled (or rather was chopped in pieces), by the local people after the end of ww2, in order to be used placed in the fields as shelter for agriculture tools and animals.



Comments from the fellow visitors are wellcome.

Cheers,

John

[harryamb2]

must be worth saving!.

[kiwiwreckdiver]

Any Idea what happend to her, she must have gone to a museum or some collector ???

[jterny]

Hi,
About the fate of this fuselage : As i said it was a discovering of late 80's in the island. At that time and even know, there was no interest at all from some official authority to save such relics and every one could chop in pieces rare aircraft structures in order to use the removed elements ( steel tubes and skin parts ) for every use (poles for field fences, to cover store places etc. These realy "clean" relics as presented in the photos, were not at all in this condition when found.... Most of the fuselage sections were covered by ragged plastic and nylon covers and zinc sheets because for several years were in use as shelters..! So before issuing the photos and in order to solve the problem for the belonging aircraft ID , i had to strip each one...or even to cut down ..trees branches above them !
Sorry to say, but at that time and due to the large size of these relics, i was able to recover only the cockpit canopy structure, which today is repatriated in it's home land Italy. All the rest were left at the fields were found..Perhaps even today some pieces of this fuselage remain at spot there..

John

[vkontog]

Thank you for your spectacular pictures!

Some of these magnificent pictures were published (by you) in a Greek military history magazine. Have you created any kind of a private museum? I would like to see those relics in the Hellenic Air force Museum

[jterny]

Yes, that's true : some of these photos are already published with my relevant articles in History mags.
Unfortunately, i can not create a private museum and i am only limited to my personal collection with many smaller relics. Any way , i am trying to "repatriate" the larger ones ( Regia Aeronautica and Luftwaffe items), because since now i didn't found some serious option to show all these here in Greece.
So right now, my intention is to keep posting new relics finding in the forum, for all the interested people .

John

[vkontog]

The HAF hasn't expressed interest in acquiring some of the relics?

[jterny]

Sorry to say, but not any serious one.
So, far i have donated some other relics (such as a Panzer I tank turret, which i found on a ww2 panzerstellung in a airfield of Athens area ), with out any really worthy trying to present it and at all NO recignition for my effort.

[Adrian Stevenson]

Hi John, thanks for posting these really interesting pics.

Sorry to hear your efforts have not been correctly acknowledged or rewarded. But they are appreciated here.

Cheers, Ade.

[kiwiwreckdiver]

Jumping the topic of the Italian aircraft but could you tell me anymore on the Fw200 you have mentioned??
I'm compiling a detailed losses list of FW200's and I haven't herd of this one or any other you may know of in your part of the world.
Any help would be fantastic and I'm sorry to see that HAFM hasn't helped you.
Museums can be greedy at times and I have had too have had this problem when dealing with museums.

Best regards