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Re: Savoia Marchetti SM84 - 257a Squadriglia (1943)
36° Stormo Aerosiluranti, after converting from S.79 to S.84, went in september 1941 from his home base at Bologna - Borgo Panigale to Decimomannu in Sardinia, being based there till september 1942 when it flew to Pisa, converting again to S.79.
All the aircraft in the picture wear a white fuselage band, and not a white band with superimposed camouflage as often seen in aircraft of this unit: it's possible that they had been photographed in the first period of the employ.
The base should be Decimomannu, that had very basic fixed installations and whose terrain was made also sometimes of grassless earth as visible in the picture (see some of the photos published in the very complete book "Sparvieri e Predoni - l'aeroporto di Decimomannu nella Seconda Guerra Mondiale" by Stefano Demontis and Alessandro Ragatzu).
Please note that each aircraft had a torpedo under its belly.
I don' think at all that the photo had been taken in Libya.
Cheers
Gianandrea
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