L'Alcyon Française

    

   

    Alcyone is a character of the Greek mythology. A woman turned into a water bird by the wrath of Zeus. Alcione is the Italian translation of her name, but it is also the name that the Italians had given to one of their airplanes, the WWII bomber CANT Z. 1007. 

    The Alcione that is the subject of this post was also transformed. After it emergency-landed in French territory in 1940, this Alcione was turned into a unique and unrepeatable Italo-Franco- American hybrid land bird. And so l'Alcyon française, christened with a name that commemorated a glorious battle, spent the rest of its honorable service in the desert.    

    This is its story.  

     

    

    The C.A.N.T. Z. 1007 Bir Hacheim

    di Luigino Caliaro (traduzione di L. Pavese)

    On September 29, 1940, at 08:50, a formation of ten CANT Z. 1007bis, five belonging to 204th Squadriglia and five belonging to the 205th Squadriglia of the 41st Group BT (Bombardamento Terrestre, Land Bombing) took off from Rhodes on a bombing mission aimed at the military installations located 5 miles southwest of Haifa, along the Haifa-Jaffa railroad, and the ships at anchor in the port of Haifa.

A formation of Z. 1007bis Alcione of the 41st Gruppo
 probably taken right after the outbreak of WWII

    The Italian formation was led by Major Ettore Muti. Of the ten original aircraft only seven reached the target at 11:28. The other three trimotor bombers were forced to interrupt the mission due to technical problems.

    The seven Z. 1007bis’ launched their bombs aimed at the targets from an altitude varying between 5600 and 6000 meters above Haifa. But the bombardment was not very effective, because the launch on the first target was affected by a very strong crosswind, and the one on the second target was made very difficult by the presence of enemy fighters and by the antiaircraft defense. The Italians claimed one enemy fighter shot down, but two CANT Z.1007’s were damaged by the antiaircraft artillery.

    After launching her bombs, the CANT Z. 1007 204-5 (Italian military registration M.M. 22375), flown by Captain Stefano Castellani, broke formation and headed north due tto a problem with the left engine, which eventually forced the pilot to make an emergency landing in Lebanon (some sources say that it was in Syria). On landing, the landing gear of the Italian bomber collapsed and the aircraft was damaged, but not irremediably.

The Alcione 204-5 after the emergency landing in French territory

     The five men flight crew was initially interned and later released by the French authorities that administered the Middle Eastern region. (The French government had maintained control of Lebanon and Syria after the June 22, 1940, Armistice with Germany. In the late Spring of 1941, the Allies launched Operation Exporter and took over Syria and Lebanon.)

    In Syria the F.A.F.L. (Forces Aériennes Française Libres, the Free French Air Force) therefore gained possession of a lot of material that had been left behind by the Axis Forces, including the Italian CANT Z1007bis that had been recovered after the forced landing. The trimotor was immediately assigned to the French L.A.M (Lignes Aériennes Militaires, Military Air Lines). This “company,” based in Damascus, was officially set up in September of 1941 and it was, in effect, a military air transport unit instituted by the F.A.F.L., which was tasked with regularly transporting personnel and material linking the Middle East with the French colonial territories, particularly the African colonies.

    The responsibility of organizing the activity of the L.A.M. was given to Colonel Lionel de Marmier, who was a French WWI flying ace with six air vicrories. De Marmier had also flown in the Spanish Republican Air Force during the Civil War and, after returning to active service at the beginning of WWII, he had claimed two German aircraft while he was flying a Caudron C.714 of the GC (Fighter Group) 1/145 Varsovie.

    After the French surrender, de Marmier had joined the Free French Forces and had been officially named President of the L.A.M., a role in which he served until he died in the air crash of a Lockheed Lodestar off the shores of the Balearic Islands on December 30, 1944.

    Thanks to Colonel De Marmier’s drive, the activity of the L.A.M. literally took off and, after having restored Damascus airport and recovered some of the aircraft that were abandoned there by the Vichy forces, it was possible to make the first Damascus to Cairo flight on September 8, 1941. Just a short time after that first flight, the L.A.M. airlines already extended for about 6000 kilometers.

    Notwithstanding the fact that the Italian CANT Z. 1007 was in bad condition, thanks to its good range it was chosen to be put back in service on the long range L.A.M. routes to Africa regardless of its rather limited load carrying capabilities.

    The wreck of the Alcione was salvaged near Beirut, Lebanon. It was summarily put back into flight conditions to be transferred to Damascus where it would undergo a major overhaul.

    The following account of a French L.A.M. technician, M. Freullet, is particularly interesting:

    “A flight from this airfield (Beirut) to Damascus before having done some significant repairs was not even a possibility, as well as transporting the aircraft on the road. […] After the inspection, the work needed before any flight attempt turned out to be significant: useless engines, impossible to retract the landing gear and so on. De Marmier wanted to take this aircraft to Damascus, where the capabilities of our workshops were better, and he had some reinforcing sleeves installed on the landing gear, which would remain in the lowered position. An Italian license-built Gnome et Rhône engine was mounted on one of the side engine mounts but was unusable. The engine was replaced by the central one, which was in turn replaced by a Pratt & Whitney Cyclone engine, after adapting the central engine mount to receive the American engine. In Damascus,this modification was extended to the side engine mounts, thereby equipping the aircraft with three Pratt & Whitney engines. So, at a very low altitude, with landing gear extended, and with engine power setting reduced to the lowest possible safety minimum, the flight over the mountains between Beirut and Damascus was not easy; but de Marmier would not allow anyone else to do it. And the same goes for all the test flights of all the aircraft reconditioned by our shops…”

    In Damascus, the CANT Z. 1007bis was also equipped with new American Curtiss Electric propellers. The French technicians removed all the Italian military equipment and adapted the interior of the airplane to the transport of passengers by opening also a few round windows in the fuselage.

The M.M. 22375 under overhaul in the Damascus French workshop

    The Italian airplane was given the French civilian registration FL-AVM (later changed into FC-AVM), and was also given a new, complete and probably dark green paint job. The French insignia with the Lorraine Cross on the tail were applied, and the aircraft was christened “Bir Hacheim.”

The Italian Alcione is now Bir Hacheim after having been refurbished in Damascus.
The Potez 650 FL-ATM Nantes is visible in the background

    Bir Hacheim in Arabic means "Wise man's well" or the "Chief's well" and designated an old oasis that represented the British southernmost line of defense which, starting from the coast between Gazala and Tobruk, weaved through the Libyan desert for about 70 kilometers. 

    The name was chosen by the French to commemorate the valiant resistance of the 1st Brigade of the Free French Forces against the Axis Forces in June 1942.

    After the first test flight, the Bir Hacheim was scheduled to fly the Damascus-Brazzaville (French Congo) air route on July 14, as attested by M. Freullet:

“The repair and modification work were carried out quickly, because de Marmier and, no doubt, other company officials, wanted to offer Free France a quick Damascus-Brazzaville-Damascus air-link on July 14, 1942. (Bastille Day, T/N). Without any original manuals, however, the thorough overhaul of this aircraft was not easy. Nevertheless, the endeavor was successful and a few test flights allowed us to prepare the airplane for the flight…notwithstanding the low passenger capacity, this plane could turn out useful to provide fast air-links.”

    Everything was proceeding well, and after a 45’ positive test flight made on July 11, 1942, on the morning of July 12, de Marmier took off for a long flight between Damascus and Fort Lamy (Chad), with the final destination of Brazzaville, and a return scheduled for July 14. On the Franco-Italian trimotor beside de Marmier there were the First Officer Roger Speich and a few technicians in the passenger cabin. But, during the take-off run, the aircraft developed engine malfunctions and de Marmier was forced to abort the takeoff run which terminated ruinously off the runway.

 

Two pictures of the Bir Hacheim taken after the ruinous July 12, 1942 takeoff from Damascus 

    The incident did not diminish, however, the determination to put the CANT Z. 1007 back in service.

    A few months later, the trimotor got back in the air and flew successfully on the Equatorial Africa routes.

    Unfortunately, the information about its service with L.A.M. is very fragmentary, although we know that the CANT Z. 1007 was also employed in support of the Leclerc Column in the Libyan Fezzan against the Italian garrisons. The first one of these missions was flown from Damascus on December 5, 1942. And using Fort Lamy, (now called N'djamena, T/N) Chad as a base, the Bir Hacheim made many flights to the French positions to the north, ensuring a daily air-link between Fort Lamy-Zouar (northern Chad)-Fort Lamy, logging about eight hours of flight time a day.

    On December 22, 1942, the CANT Z. 1007, flown by pilot Champaloux on a search and rescue mission, found a L.A.M. Potez that had gotten lost and run out of fuel. The Z. 1007 landed near the stranded Potez and, after having ascertained that the cause of the forced landing was fuel exhaustion, the Z. 1007 took off again to Faya Largeau (northern Chad), where it loaded some fuel barrels to refuel the Potez, which was then able to return to base.

    On January 20, 1943, after this cycle of activity, the Bir Hacheim had logged 140 hours of flight time upon its return to Damascus . It took off again from Damascus on January 27 to the same area of operation, during which it logged 80 more hours.

Beautiful picture of the Bir Hacheim, probably taken in Damascus, Syria

    The Italo-French-American trimotor was also employed on the Congo route and, according to the records, the converted bomber was in Brazzaville in mid-September 1942 to fly General de Gaulle to Accra (Ghana) to where he was going to proceed to London on a British transport. On September 23, 1942, however, the day of the flight, the aircraft developed a problem at the engine start-up, and de Gaulle was flown to Accra on a reserve Lockheed Lodestar. The CANT later flew back to Damascus via Fort Lamy and Khartoum.

    The last recorded information reports the CANT Z. 1007 on the airport of Lindi, in Tanganika in June 1943 and then in Tananarive, Madagascar. It was in Madagascar that the Bir Hacheim met its demise. About twenty minutes after taking off from Tananarive on its way back to Damascus and on the first leg to Lindian, an oil leak from the central engine forced pilot Speich to turn back. On landing, the brakes, which had already not functioned correctly during the takeoff roll , could not stop the aircraft laden by passengers and by the fuel load, forcing the pilot to veer off the runway to avoid falling into a gully at the end of the runway.

Another image of the Franco-Italian-American ex-CANT Z. 1007bis taken in Damascus

    The damage to the CANT Z. 1007 was so extensive that it was not possible to repair it in Madagascar, and it was abandoned there.

This article appeared originally on the n. 145 issue of Ali Antiche magazine. The magazine is a publication of the G.A.V.S. an Italian association of aviation enthusiasts dedicated to preserve Italian aviation heritage.

The article was published here with their permission.

A special thank to Janice Jenkins Pavese for reviewing the English text.

Your comments, as always, will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you,

Leonardo Pavese