Greek Spad VII

[Angiolillo]

Hello!

I am introducing a Greek SPAD VII to my little game "Wings of War". The card needs a upper view. Only "documentation" I have is a picture of a model taken in the War Museum of Athens: 4 color camouflage (green/light gray/light brown/chestnut) and Greek blue/white/blue cockades over the wing. Blue/white/blue stripes on moveable part of the tail.

Any suggestion?

Name of pilot/rank/unit suggested? From this thread
Greco-Turkish war 1919-1922
I'd say that a generic "533 Mira" could fit, if nothing more accurate is proposed.

Thanks a lot everybody!

Andrea

[Cruz Verras]

Hi Angiolillo.
Just give me a couple of days and see what I can dig.
The colours on the model in the Athens war museum is a good try,but pure fiction regarding the hues.
I'll catch ya latter.

Cheers.

[Cruz Verras]

Sorry for keeping you waiting Angiolillo, found the pic and some info.
I can assure you that the greeks never distinguished the two types (VII-XIII)
whatsoever.So its a bit hard to tell fro the few pics.

To be frank, the one I'm posting is probably a XIII.
French patern and camo colours with a snake like fuselage stripe in black, regarded by some as a theatre marking and others as some sort of identification.Same markings have been observed on other types also.
Cockades in the usual places( not on fuselage,as the model in the museum).

4457 was flown by Lt.Mamalakis and 4466 by Sg. Stavropoulos in which he shot down a turkish Br.14 on 12 July 1922.
Stavropoulos also flew in 4468.According to greek sources all the above serials are refered as Spads.
Hope this helped a bit.

Cheers Cruz.

[Angiolillo]

Hello!

Thanks so much, it was well worth waiting! Great infos indeed!

What I am doing is a little card game. I will put name, family name, rank (in Greek, Latin alphabet), unit (in Greek, Latin alphabet), Air Service (in Grek, Latin alphabet) on it, as in those examples (front/back):





Any suggestion is welcome!

Yes I saw the snake-like band somewhere else. For example on a Breguet XIV profile on an Italian "Aviation History" ("Storia dell'aviazione", by the publisher Fabbri) that I bought when I was a kid:

[Cruz Verras]

Good luck with your project Angiolillo.
Looks like fun.

All the best Cruz.

[Cigogne]

The photo is definitely of a Spad XIII. You can tell by the center section struts in this view. They are slanted forward. The Spad VII center section struts were vertical.

[Angiolillo]

Thanks a lot to both! Even if it's a XIII, I guess that it's a good reference for VIIs too.

The confusion was pretty usual. During WWI I think that often the Italian army referred to SPADs using the amount of square meters of the wing, or sometime the HPs of the engine... So it's a common difficulty.

I guess nobody knows for sure if 4457, 4466 and 4468 were VII or XIII anyway. Stavropoulos' 4466 is referred here as a VII:
Greco-Turkish War

It would be interesting to know which unit Sgt Christoforos Stavropoulos belonged to, and how to write "Sergeant" and "Ελληνικός Στρατός" in Greek but with Latin letters (I know it's a silly question, but this is the way the game works). I think I should ask under "People".

Thanks again to both of you!

Andrea

[Cruz Verras]

Sgt.= Lohias(Λοχιας)
Ελληνικος Στρατος= Ellinikos stratos.

I'll check on the unit and be back.

cheers Cruz.

[Angiolillo]

Really, really appreciated.

I asked guessing that Ellinikos stratos is the name of the Greek air service at that time (the equivalent of Royal Flying Corps or Royal Naval Air Service for Britis pilots up to 1918, Royal Air Force after).

All the best!

Andrea

[DTB]

Buon Giorno Angiolillo,

Only franco-greek escadrille 531 used the SPAD during the war. Only one greek pilot flew in this squadron : sous-lieutenant Alexandros Zannas, the commanding officer. The other pilots were french.

A french official order asks to paint greek cockades to french planes of escadrille 531. I am sure this was done to the Nieuports : they were all silver, plus greek cockades done by overpainting the red on the french cockades. Later, a darker blue (british blue) was ordered to be painted. Unfortunately, I have no photos of the planes of escadrille 531 at this period, but I an sure it was done as one french pilot writes to his parents that he is pleased to fly in a Nieuport wearing the colors of his favorite football club (white and blue). I also have the testimony of french troops seeing fighters with "greek cockades".

Escadrille 531 received SPAD in june 1918. I have 2 photos of this time period : the SPAD still wear french cockades... They have usual french camouflage. But we can't say if whey ever had greek cockades during WW1.

Ciao,
DTB