Thursday 29 October 2015

SPAD S.VII - Third entry, foreign users vol. 3

We continue with our SPAD S.VII saga, this time with even more foreign users of the SPAD S.VII, this entry is a continuation of this other one:

  • Poland: One of the main post-war users of the SPAD S.VII and one of the very first airplanes that constituted the Wojska Lotnicze (Polish Air Force) back in 1918. It saw action during the Polish Soviet war.
  • Portugal: It made famous in this country because the Portuguese ace Oscar Monteir Torres, the only Portuguese pilot who died in aerial-combat during the great war, flew one of these. When the Portuguese Aviation Corps was founded back in February 1919, the fighter squadron was equipped with S.VIIs. This same squadron was renamed in December 1921 as 'Captain Monteiro Torres Squadron'.
  • Romania: Apparently some S.VII were employed during the great war by the Romanian Royal Aeronautics. As we couldn't find graphic evidence, the colours are speculative.
  • Imperial Russia: The Imperial Russian Air Service employed them widely in the eastern front of the great war and it was also used by the Whites during the Russian Civil War. It's also worth mentioning that the three versions of this airplane were employed: The ones made by SPAD themselves, the ones made by Blériot and the ones made locally by DUX in Moscow.
  • Serbia: Some Serbian pilots, integrated in the French SPA.523  squadron, flew S.VII airplanes which later, after the war would form the very first fighter units of the kingdom of Croats Slovenes and Serbs, or, as was commonly known, Kingdom of Yugoslavia (those will be covered in the next entry). During the great war they were used in the Macedonian (Thessaloniki) Front
  • Red Army/USSR: The Russian Red Army, employed them widely during the Russian civil war and Polish Soviet war and was among the very first fighters used by the Workers' and Peasants' Air Fleet (the precursor of the Soviet Air Force). They were ex-Imperial units or captured ones.
Note: We know that theorically those SPAD used by the United Kingdom should be in this entry (as we are following an alphabetical order for the foreign users), but considering that they used it very widely we decided to make a dedicated entry just for them.

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