[Milsurplus] "Wreck of the M.M. 23881"

[Hubert Miller]

I was looking at this video of lost or abandoned aircraft

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6WsJkmnpHU

and at minute 1:22 of some 5 minutes there was a color photo of the "Lady Be Good".

I was surprised - never saw a color photo of the plane before - well, at least not this one,

because i now remember at about age 11 reading the LIFE magazine article on its

discovery, article with some color photos. Anyway i thought i'd look at the Wiki entries

to see if there were any color photos there. None, but reading there lead to this interesting

entry:



"....He walked for over 90 km (56 mi) in the desert, missed a Long_Range_Desert_Group water depot, and finally was overcome and died only eight kilometres from the Giarabub road, where his remains were found by chance by a group of Eni technicians on 21 July 1960. Next to him was found a used Flare_gun, which he had probably fired before succumbing. Subsequent searches led to the discovery of the SM.79 on 5 October 1960. The wreck was largely intact, and still bore the initials of its Squadron. The skeleton of one crew member (probably the pilot, Cimolini), showing several Fracture (he was probably killed or gravely wounded in the landing, as the cockpit still bore bloodstains, was found still inside the Cockpit, whereas two more bodies were found outside the wreck, one of them sheltering behind a wing. The other two crew members were never found; the finding of an additional Clock on Romanini's body indicated that at least another crewman had accompanied him through the desert, but had died earlier on the march."

( from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savoia-Marchetti_SM.79#MM._23881 )

Apparently the radio had failed, compounding their navigation problems. Receiver = AR-18, which are around; Transmitter = RF350, which is unobtanium.

Squadron Signal publications book on the SM-79 has a photo of the radio position.



Some photos from the discovered wreck:

http://blog.maestrilavoro-monzaebrianza.it/?p=705



via: H M
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