During the Second World War, an airstrip and some small hangars were built at Sa Zeppara, near Km 101 of the SS126. This area was known on military maps as airport 603 and from here Italian torpedo bombers took off to attack English convoys passing the Strait of Gibraltar.
The dirt runway, about 1,200 meters long, faced northwest. After the end of the conflict, the resumption of agricultural activities gradually led to its disintegration. Identifying the Sa Zeppara airfield was no easy task. In fact, no map of the island reported its location, thus avoiding its systematic bombing by the Anglo-American forces (as happened several times, instead, to the nearby "S'acqua Cotta" airport). The airport had buildings and hangars only for food and ammunition storage and for the soldiers on guard; the crews and personnel were housed in tents or barracks of which no trace remains today. The hangars still exist today, built in volcanic stone (black) and covered with wooden trusses and tiles. In the area there are also some bunkers, located on private land.
The importance of this airport was due to the strategic nature of its geographical location, in the immediate hinterland of the south-western coast of the island, in the centre of the Mediterranean.
During the German occupation, near the Melas nuraghe, an ammunition depot was built, of which only the concrete floor is visible today. In the airport, perfectly efficient newly built Macchi MC205V (Veltro) were deployed under the command of Commander Duilio Fanali. In 1940, work began on the construction of the runway at Sa Zeppara with workers from all over the territory .
At Sa Zeppara airport, aircraft maintenance was entrusted to workers from the workshops of the nearby Montevecchio mine. Thanks to this collaboration, the workers learned high-level maintenance techniques, which improved their knowledge: over time, their technical skills and modern aeronautical equipment meant that the workers became among the most qualified in Italy. Mobile workshops (trucks with special equipment for aircraft maintenance) were brought to the Sa Zeppara airfield from Monserrato airport, which was bombed in the first raids before the bombing of Cagliari in the early months of 1943.
For the record, the Americans waited for the rains to make the Monserrato airport unusable. In fact, in this location the runways were located on clay soil that did not allow the drainage of rainwater. Therefore, when the American planes arrived, even if spotted, coming from Tunisia, the Italian planes could not take off. Using this stratagem the Allied forces were able to bomb and destroy the city of Cagliari. What remained of the Monserrato airport - planes and mobile workshops - was taken to Sa Zeppara which became the most important air overhaul center in Sardinia until the end of the war. As the maintenance records of Macchi attest, in the last two hangars about forty employees of Montevecchio (including about ten from Guspini) worked on the pre-flight and post-flight overhaul of the aircraft, on the tuning and testing of the engines, landing gear, radios and armament. All of this took place under the supervision of the Technical Supervision Office of the Royal Air Force and, from the autumn of 1943, of a Luftwaffe (Wehrmacht) officer.
