May 1944
| 13 | May | Soviet forces liberated Crimea. |
Italian submarine patrols in the Mediterranean during May 1944
| Nichelio (24-29 May) |
The US and British governments rejected Marshal Badoglio’s offer that Italy become a fully-fledged ally instead of a co-belligerent.
The German Naval High Command considered building U-boats of type XXI and type XXIII in Marseille, Salonika, and Volos to prosecute the war in the Mediterranean.
Ammiraglio Cagni (C.C. Rino Erler) arrived at Palermo on 3 May to start a series of training exercises with American and British forces. Despite Allied supremacy on the seas and in the air, the area was far from secure. At the end of March, the destroyer HMS Laforey had been torpedoed and sunk by U-223, only 20 miles from the base, although the U-boat had been hunted and sent to the bottom shortly after. Only six days after the arrival of Cagni, the patrol boat USS PC-558[1] was torpedoed and sunk by U-230 (KL Siegmann) about 30 miles north of Palermo. A large-scale hunt followed, but the U-boat escaped the net. Nevertheless, Cagni immediately began exercising Allied ASW forces and, fortunately, was never interfered with. A Submarine Attack Teacher, a British invention, was set up at the base in September; by this time, the underwater war in the Mediterranean was practically over, save for the threat of midget submarines. However, ASW training was still essential as the U-boat threat elsewhere was still very present, and the war with Japan could take a few more years.
On 19 May, the sinking of British transport Fort Missanabie (7,147 GRT, built 1943) by U-453 (OLDierk Lührs) was the last U-boat success in the Mediterranean. U-453 was lost shortly afterward.
Nichelio (T.V. Ugo Esmenard) landed Greek agents on the island of Zante (27/28 May).
On 25 May, the large transport submarine UI 4 (ex-R.7) and the smaller Beilul now under German control, were sunk during a raid on Monfalcone by sixty-one Liberators bombers escorted by forty-seven Lightning fighters.
On the last day of the month, Galatea (T.V. Carlo Gladstone Cruciani) arrived at Gibraltar from Alexandria. She spent the next months exercising there with ASW forces before defects forced her to return to Taranto in November for a long refit. She would not become operational before the end of the war.
Giada (T.V. Mario Barazzuoli) arrived at Colombo on 7 May, followed by Brin (T.V. Luigi Andreotti) on 29 May; they began a series of anti-submarine exercises. These two submarines constituted the Gruppo Sommergibili Oceano Indiano under C.C. Attilio Petroni and used the Dutch merchant ship Plancius (5955 GRT, built 1923) as a depot ship. They were later joined by the destroyer Carabiniere.
[1] PC-558 had been one of the first vessels to deal with the threat of German midget submarines when she sank one off Anzio on 21 April 1944.