Overview

An Overview of the Italian Submarine Fleet 1895-1940

Beginnings of the Italian Submarine Fleet

The roots of the Italian Navy can be traced back to the First Punic War when Rome challenged Carthage for the supremacy of the Western Mediterranean. Gaius Duilius (Caio Duilio) and Marcus Attilius Regulus (Attilio Regolo) won the first battles of the Roman Navy, and two centuries later, the Great Pompei (Pompeo Magno) cleared the Mediterranean of pirates and laid the foundations for the Roman Empire’s claim to ‘Mare Nostrum’. The Fall of the Roman Empire of the West led to the rise of the City-States. Italian navigators such as Colombo, Vespucci, or Caboto were eagerly sought and would play key roles in the discovery of the New World. The fleets of Genoa and Venice competed for markets, and if their rivalry was essentially of a mercantile nature, they could be counted upon to fight for Christendom as they did in the battle of Lepanto (1571). The rebirth of the modern Italian Navy dates back to the days of the unification of Italy in the 19th Century. It had inauspicious beginnings when, at the battle of Lissa (1866), it was defeated by an Austrian Squadron, although this had little consequence in the outcome of the war. In 1911-1912, the Regia Marina took part in the conquest of Libya and defeated the Turkish Navy in several engagements, culminating in the battle of Beirut and the occupation of the Dodecanese.

The first submarines and the Great War

The first Italian submarine was the Delfino, built at La Spezia in 1895 and delivered to the Navy the following year. Displacing about 100 tons, she could dive to a depth of thirty-two metres and was later armed with a single 450mm torpedo tube. Although the Regia Marina made use of submarines during the Great War, they were not very successful and had little impact on the war at sea. In May 1915, the first submarine patrol was carried out off Cattaro by Nereide (C.C. Carlo del Greco) of 225 tons armed with four 450mm torpedo tubes. The first loss occurred when Medusa (T.V. Alessandro Vitturi) was torpedoed by the Austrian U-11 (ex-German UB-15) in June. Nereide would have a short career; she was torpedoed by the Austrian U-5 (KK. Georg Ludwig Ritter von Trapp)¹ the following August and lost with all hands. Her commanding officer, C.C. Carlo del Greco, would be the first sailor of the Great War to be awarded the Medaglia d’Oro al valore militare (the highest Italian decoration awarded). Over sixty submarines saw service during this war, and ten would be lost. Successes were few: Atropo destroyed the Austrian steamer Albanien on 4 June 1916, while on 2 August 1916, Salpa damaged the Austrian destroyer Magnet. F-7 sent to the bottom of the Austro-Hungarian transports Pelagosa and Euterpe on 12 February 1918 and 11 August 1918, respectively. Finally, F-12 sank the Austrian submarine U-20 on 4 July 1918.

Italians, however, scored their greatest victories using ‘insidious means’ (mezzi insidiosi). They made good use of small torpedo boats or M.A.S. (Motoscafo Armato Silurante or armed torpedo boat), which scored several successes against their Austrian foes. In June 1916, on two occasions, MAS-5 and MAS-7 attacked the harbour of Durazzo and sank the transports Lokrum (924 GRT) and Sarajevo (1,110 GRT). In November, an attack on the light cruiser Mars in the harbour of Pola failed because of defensive nets. A year later, at the battle of Cortellazzo, two MAS boats succeeded in forcing an Austrian cruiser squadron to withdraw. On 9 December 1917, the base of Trieste was penetrated, and the old Austrian battleship Wien (5,900 tons) was torpedoed and sunk. Because of the menace from these boats, harbour defences were strengthened, and in February 1918, an attack on Buccari harbour was unsuccessful. In May, Grillo boats (naval tanks) were used to attack Pola; they had to be towed and then released at the harbour’s entrance. It was hoped that their low profile would make it easier to evade the vigilance of Austrian defences, but the attempt failed. Upon learning of an imminent sortie by an Austrian squadron, ten Italian submarines were deployed but failed to intercept it. Two French submarines Faraday and Franklin reported the enemy ships, which enabled the MAS boats to achieve their greatest success when MAS-15 (C.C. Luigi Rizzo) sank the Austrian battleship Szent István (20,000 tons, twelve 12-inch (305mm) guns) on 10 June 1918 while MAS-21 missed the battleship Tegethoff.

During the night of 31 October/1 November 1918, two Italian divers, Raffaele Paolucci and Raffaele Rossetti, wearing primitive suits, rode a special torpedo, the ‘Mignatta’ (leech)², and penetrated the Austro-Hungarian stronghold of Pola. With explosive charges, they managed to sink the battleship Viribus Unitis (20,000 tons, twelve 12-inch (305mm) guns), which was recently ceded to the nascent Yugoslavia and the freighter Wien (7,367 GRT, built 1911). With the Armistice with Austria only two days away, this last exploit had little effect on the outcome of the war. However, the modest means employed and the successful destruction of a capital ship did not go unnoticed, and the birth of the Prima Flottiglia MAS (1st Assault Vehicle Flotilla, MAS stood for Mezzi d’assalto or assault weapons) in 1939 was a direct result of this. Pioneered by Majors Teseo Tesei and Elios Toschi, it was later re-organised as Decima Flottiglia MAS (10th Assault Vehicle Flotilla) and would prove worthy of its predecessors.

The Interwar Years

Spurred by the advent of Fascism, the Italian Navy embarked on an ambitious rearmament period. Following the Great War, the five great naval powers signed the Naval Treaty of Washington to limit the possibility of an arms race that had preceded the conflict. The treaty limited the tonnage as follows:

	Capital Ships	Aircraft carriers
Great Britain	525,000	135,000
United States	525,000	135,000
Japan	315,000	81,000
France	175,000	60,000
Italy	175,000	60,000

Italy sought and obtained parity with its greatest rival, the French Navy. This was not viewed benevolently in French circles. The Marine Nationale was divided between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean and this would automatically give the Italian Navy preponderance in the Middle Sea. The German Imperial Navy nearly brought Great Britain to her knees with unrestricted submarine warfare; this lesson was not lost on the Regia Marina. Special attention was given to the development of submarines (see the next section for details of the construction program).

During the Corfu crisis (August-September 1923), when Italy forcibly occupied the island, the submarines Barbarigo and Provana were used to show the flag. The crisis was resolved when Greece agreed to pay reparations for the murder of General Tellini and Italian forces evacuated the island.

Tragedy struck the Italian Submarine Fleet when, on 26 August 1925, Veniero, launched during the Great War, was accidentally rammed by the Italian steamer Capena during exercises near Cape Passero, leaving no survivors. Another disaster occurred on 6 August 1928 when the destroyer Giuseppe Missori collided with submarine F-14, who sank off Pola at a depth of 40 metres. Despite frantic efforts to rescue some of the crew trapped in the wreck, there were no survivors.

Attempts to innovate, such as the development of an underwater breathing apparatus similar to the Schnorkel, were made. The Italian design was tested successfully in 1926, but the Navy lost interest.

The same year, the submarine force became a Division (the origin of Maricosom). It included two submarine flotillas attached to the First Naval Squadron, and its headquarters were on the depot ship Pacinotti under Rear-Admiral Gino Ducci. In 1932, the Division evolved as Ispettoratto Sommergibili (Submarine Inspectorate) which was directly under the authority of the Naval Ministry. In 1934, the headquarters were moved from Pacinotti to the light cruiser Taranto³. In 1935, tensions with Great Britain were at their highest due to the crisis in Ethiopia, and the command became Comando di Sommergibili (Maricosom), based in Rome under Admiral Mario Falangola. He would remain in command until 10 December 1941, when he was replaced by Admiral Antonio Legnani.

In peacetime, submarines provided navigation beacons, weather information, and general assistance to the ambitious flight across the Atlantic by large seaplanes led by the famous aviator General Italo Balbo⁴. The flight occurred in the summer of 1933 and involved twenty-five Savoia-Marchetti S.55 seaplanes of the II Squadra Atlantica divided into eight flights of three aircraft, each with the 25th held in reserve. The beacons were provided by the ocean-going submarines Balilla (CF Valerio Della Campana) and Domenico Millelire (CC Franco Zannoni), the drifters Biglieri and Matteucci, the yacht Alice and six whaleships. The two submarines sailed from La Spezia on 24 March 1933. They stopped at Gibraltar, Madeira, Bermuda, Boston, and Halifax and finally arrived at St. John’s (Newfoundland) on 22 May, where they were based until the operation was completed. They carried out three sorties (July-August) before leaving for New York on 14 August and eventually returned to La Spezia on 11 October. The seaplanes took off from Orbetello on 1 July and made stops at Amsterdam, Londonderry, Reykjavik, Cartwright (Labrador), Shediac, Montreal, and Chicago, where the aviators received a rapturous welcome from the large Italian community. The return trip included stops at New York, Shediac, Shoal Harbour (Newfoundland), Ponta Delgada (Azores), and Lisbon before reaching Lido di Roma on 12 August. The whole experience was a great success and a propaganda coup for the Fascist regime.

Balilla and Millelire sailed in September 1933 for a circumnavigation of Africa and a goodwill tour until February. They stopped at some twenty African ports and Gibraltar. Once again, the voyage was a great success and enhanced the prestige of Italy.

The Spanish Civil War interlude

Although six Italian submarines⁵ were deployed in East Africa, they had no significant role to play in the conquest of Abyssinia (1935-1936). Still, the Spanish Civil War was an opportunity to test their weaponry. At first, they operated clandestinely, sometimes with Spanish officers on board, to give pretense that the submarines were Spanish. Italy sided with the Nationalists of General Franco but initially avoided open warfare with the Spanish Republic. On 22 November 1936, the submarine Torricelli (C.C. Giuseppe Zarpellon with Spanish Officer C.C. Genova) torpedoed the Republican light cruiser Miguel de Cervantes near Cartagena. Hit starboard aft, with a massive hole of 21 x 14 metres, the Spanish ship managed to limp away but was out of the war. On 27 December, Ettore Fieramosca (C.C. Mario Bartalesi with Spanish T.V. Luis Cebreiro), operating off Valencia, missed the Spanish light cruiser Mendez Nuňez with three torpedoes. Tazzoli  (C.C. Mario Leoni)⁶ and Spanish T.V. Juan Bona missed the destroyers Almirante Valdés and Lazaga with four torpedoes the same day. These attacks undoubtedly had an intimidating effect on the operations of the Republican Navy.

The submarines were occasionally used to bombard Spanish harbours. On 12 January 1937, Calvi (C.C. Alberto Beretta) shelled Valencia. On the 18th of the month, Torricelli bombarded the harbour installations and shipping of Barcelona. Menotti (C.C. Vittorio Moccagatta) torpedoed the Spanish freighter Delfin (1,253 GRT), who sank in shallow waters on 31 January. The submarine completed her patrol with bombardments of objectives in the Malaga area (2-3 February). Fieramosca (C.C. Mario Bartalesi) bombarded Barcelona on 8 and 9 February 1937; the Spanish tanker Zorrosa was hit by a shell but suffered minor damage. Topazio (C.C. Paolo Pesci) bombarded Valencia on 12 February.

On 9 February 1937, near Tarragona, Ferraris (C.C. Primo Longobardo) torpedoed the Spanish freighter Navarra (1,688 GRT). The vessel was beached, and a second hit completed its destruction.

In April 1937, the Italian Government ceded the submarines Archimede and Torricelli to the Spanish Nationalist forces; they were renamed General Mola and General Sanjurjo, respectively. These two submarines quickly illustrated themselves by sinking several Republican freighters.

In the middle of the summer of 1937, a new wave of attacks was carried out. Jalea (C.C. Silvio Garino) torpedoed the Spanish destroyer Churucca off Cartagena on 12 August; the warship had just left the harbour in company with Almirante Antequera and, though badly damaged, she was towed to safety. The Spanish Civil War now extended to the entire Mediterranean. On 15 August, Galileo Ferraris (C.C. Sergio Lusena) sank the Republican motor freighter Ciudad de Cadiz (4,602 GRT) at the entrance of the Dardanelles after missing the British Socony off Tenedos the previous day. On the 18th, she missed the Spanish Aldecoa (6,089 GRT) but, that evening, torpedoed the Spanish Armuru (3,088 GRT), which sank in shallow waters. On 3 September, Settembrini (T.V. Beppino Manca) sank the Soviet Blagoyev (5,500 GRT) with gunfire and torpedoes near the island of Psara (Aegean).

To preserve an appearance of neutrality, some Italian submarines operated under Spanish colours:

Onice (‘Aguilar Tablada’)
Galileo Galilei (‘General Mola II’)
Galileo Ferraris (‘General Sanjurjo II’)
Iride (‘Gonzales Lopez‘)

Iride was under the orders of T.V. Junio Valerio Borghese, with Spanish T.V. Antonio Calin as liaison. The future commander of Scirè did not have a remarkable beginning, as he carried out four attacks without scoring a hit (January 1938). After the Second World War, Borghese claimed to have missed the destroyer HMS Basilisk with a torpedo and been severely depth-charged. Italian documents do not substantiate this claim.

Italian submarines impacted the Spanish Civil War, putting the Republican Navy on the defensive. But the tonnage sunk was relatively modest; they had fired seventy-one torpedoes and only scored nine or ten hits. This did not augur well for the future.

On 5 May 1938, from the battleship Conte di Cavour bridge, the Duce treated his guest Adolf Hitler to an impressive spectacle of seventy-six submarines simultaneously surfacing in the Bay of Naples and firing a salute. The prestige of the Italian Navy was at its zenith.

The following year, Italy occupied Albania. As a precaution, the submarines Atropo, Zoea, Guglielmotti, Luigi Settembrini, Galileo Galilei, Giovanni Da Procida, Salpa, and Tito Speri were deployed in defensive positions. The crisis was averted as the democracies just issued protestations.

By the eve of the Second World War, the Italian Navy had the second-largest submarine fleet in the world. The largest was the Soviet Fleet, but being divided between the Baltic, the Black Sea, the Arctic, and the Far East, it could not have the same impact as the Italian Navy, which, save for a few units in the Red Sea, was concentrated in the Mediterranean. The respective submarine Fleets on the eve of the Second World War were:

1. USSR (140+).
2. Italy (107)
3. USA (99)
4. France (77)
5. Great Britain (58)
6. Germany (57)
7. Japan (53)

The path to the Second World War

When the war erupted in 1939, Italy was ill-prepared to join her Axis partner. Mussolini had signed the Pact of Steel with Germany, assuming war would not come before 1942. Italy was frantic about preparing for the coming war, but her industries depended heavily on coal and oil, and she was short of both. The involvement in the Spanish Civil War had been a costly affair. Yet, if some valuable lessons were learnt, curiously, some technical faults remained unresolved. In August 1937, the submarine Glauco was the victim of an accident due to vapours of Methil Chloride from the air conditioning system. On 17 March 1938, there were eighteen cases of intoxication on the submarine Micca (C.C. Ernesto Sforza). On 21 July 1938, thirty-two men of Settembrini (C.C. Mario Rossetti)were stricken by the exact cause. No solution was found to these problems. This soon became evident in wartime conditions and caused the loss of a submarine in the Red Sea. During the period of the Phoney War, and to avoid incidents, Italian submarines were exercised in areas designated by an Anglo-Italian agreement. Italy sat on the sidelines for the first few months, but training feverishly proceeded as entry into the war was a matter of time. An experimental sonar of the S.A.F.A.R. type was being tested on the submarine chaser Albatros, the submarines Fieramosca, Millelire, Zoea, Calvi, and Argo being used successively as targets. The project fell through, and Italian escorts had to wait for the German version, the S-Gerät, before being equipped with it toward the end of 1941. By the spring of 1940, the Allied armies reeled under the onslaught of the German Blitzkrieg. It appeared that the war would be over in a matter of weeks. As the Dunkirk evacuation took place, the temptation became too great, and the Italian dictator took the fateful decision of declaring war on Great Britain and France.

The Italian Admiralty had issued war instructions to the submarines as early as 20 November 1939⁷; these were amended on 4 June 1940, and at midnight on 10 June 1940, Italy finally entered the war. Her submarine Fleet numbered 115 units, with more under construction. By morning, sixty-one submarines were at sea⁸. This would be the largest submarine deployment of the war until Germany could muster a similar number in the Atlantic in 1942. By comparison, when Norway was invaded a few weeks earlier, the Allied navies had briefly mustered twenty submarines at sea. The German Navy had deployed twenty-eight submarines for the same operation.

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1. The movie The Sound of Music made the patriarch of the von Trapp family world famous. ↩︎
2. They were brought by a torpedo boat under the command of C.F. Costanzo Ciano, father of the future Italian Foreign Minister and Mussolini’s son-in-law. ↩︎
3. See article L’archivio del Comando in capo della Squadra Sommergibili (Maricosom) (1934-1943) by Goffredo Califano in Bolletino Archivio marzo 1994 (USMM). ↩︎
4. See article La Crociera Nord Atlantica del gruppo Balilla (Rivista Marittima, Gennaio 1934). ↩︎
5. Narvalo, Salpa, Serpente, Settembrini, Settimo and Tricheco. ↩︎
6. In 1940, Leoni would bring the first Italian submarine to Bordeaux (Malaspina). ↩︎
7. The governor of the Dodecanese Islands, De Vecchi di Val Cismon, issued an order preparing his submarine squadron for war with Great Britain and France as early as 19 April 1939 (Supermarina Scacchieri Esteri, volume 16). ↩︎
8. Fifty-six were in the Mediterranean, one was on its way to the Atlantic, and four were in the Red Sea. ↩︎