Italian cruiser Muzio Attendolo

Last updated
Incrociatore Muzio Attendolo.jpg
Italian light cruiser Muzio Attendolo
History
Flag of Italy (1861-1946) crowned.svg Italy
NameMuzio Attendolo
Namesake Muzio Attendolo
Builder C.R.D.A., Trieste
Laid down10 April 1931
Launched9 September 1934
Commissioned7 August 1935
FateSunk 4 December 1942
General characteristics
Class and type Condottieri-class light cruiser
Displacement
  • 7,523 tonnes standard
  • 8,994 tonnes full load
Length182.2 m (597 ft 9.2 in)
Beam16.6 m (54 ft 5.5 in)
Draught5.6 m (18 ft 4.5 in)
Propulsion
  • 2 shaft Belluzzo geared turbines
  • 6 Yarrow boilers
  • 106,000 hp (79,000 kW)
Speed37 knots (69 km/h)
Range4,122 nautical miles (7,634 km) at 18 knots (33 km/h)
Complement578 men
Armament
Armour
Aircraft carried2 aircraft
Aviation facilities1 catapult

Muzio Attendolo was a Condottieri-class light cruiser of the Italian Regia Marina which fought in World War II. She was sunk in Naples by bombers of the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) on 4 December 1942. Although salvaged after the war, she was damaged beyond repair and was scrapped.

Contents

Design

Muzio Attendolo was part of the Raimondo Montecuccoli sub-class, which were the third group of Condottieri-class light cruisers. They were larger and better protected than their predecessors.

She was built by CRDA Trieste and named after Muzio Attendolo, a 14th-century ruler of Milan and founder of the Sforza dynasty.

Career

Muzio Attendolo after being torpedoed by submarine HMS Unbroken ShatteredBow.jpg
Muzio Attendolo after being torpedoed by submarine HMS Unbroken

Completed in 1935, this ship served in the Mediterranean. In 1936, under the command of Captain Manlio Tarantini, she was sent to Spain to protect Italian citizens following the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War. [1]

During World War II she served in the following actions:

At the inconclusive First Battle of Sirte, which came about as a British attempt to intercept the resupply of Benghazi, Attendolo was part of the "Close covering force" for Convoy M42.

Sent as part of the planned Italian attack on the British Operation Pedestal in August 1942, the Italian cruiser division which was denied air cover by the Germans was instead withdrawn. Passing through the patrol area of two British submarines, Muzio Attendolo was torpedoed by HMS Unbroken in the early morning of 13 August. She lost all the hull forward the first turret, but the transversal bulkhead resisted enough to save her from flooding, and the loss of the damaged part lightened the ship herself. She was towed to Messina and Naples and mostly repaired within 3 months. The cruiser Bolzano, also torpedoed by Unbroken at the same time, had been struck amidships and was not repaired due to a lack of resources.

St. Barbara’s Day bombing

Muzio Attendolo was at least theoretically part of the 7th Naval division, together with two other Condottieri-cruisers, Eugenio di Savoia and Raimondo Montecuccoli. But the real formidable deterrent was the 1st Squadron, with all three Littorio-class battleships. All this could have been effective with classical naval warfare, but airpower soon changed things drastically, as shown in the Battle of Taranto and Naples port attacks (1940–41).

In late December, Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bombers increased their activity over Naples which had become the Italians' most important naval base. Taranto had become too dangerous to harbour major ships, but Naples was still within the range of American Liberator and British Vickers Wellington bombers. On 4 December 1942 (St. Barbara's Day), 20 USAAF B-24s of 98th and 376th Bombardment Groups, based in Egypt and armed with 500 and 1000 lb bombs from 6,200 m (20,300 ft), flew to Naples unnoticed. Confused with a formation of Junkers Ju 52 transports, and flying apparently from Vesuvio, they were already over the port before anti-aircraft defences opened fire at 16.40.

Coming in from the higher terrain around Vesuvio, the pilots had underestimated the time they would need to spot, identify, and target the most important enemy ships before making course corrections that would most successfully result in hitting their primary targets. Terrestrial structures and other topographic features, from this direction, also served to clutter and confuse the pilots and their bombardiers as they tried to quickly pick out the more important enemy targets in the quickly approaching harbor. The direction and added background clutter may have also served to confuse and slow down the reaction time of the anti-aircraft defense crews who likewise had little time to identify and target the incoming bombers and resulted in these batteries only opening fire once the B-24s were on top of them. The B-24 flight had hoped to find and hit Italian battleships in the harbor. However, the direction of the air-attack had put the B-24s out of position for a bombing run on them. Even though the B-24s current flight path could not be modified enough to effectively strike at the battleships, there were other important ships in the harbor that were more vulnerable, less well defended and within the bombers current flight path. Therefore, the crews of the B-24s set their sights and made their bombing runs on the cruisers of the 7th Division.

One bomb nearly missed Eugenio di Savoia, but still caused moderate damage to the aft hull, leaving 17 dead and 46 wounded. Repair work from this "near miss" was estimated to take 40 days. Raimondo Montecuccoli was hit midships by a bomb just inside the funnel. Although the funnel was reduced to a smoking crater, the armoured grating was sufficient to protect the vital machinery that lay underneath. Even though Raimondo Montecuccoli could have suffered catastrophic damage had the bomb been able to penetrate further and into more vital compartments; her crew still suffered 44 killed and 36 wounded; and the damage to her funnel and supporting structures was sufficient that she would require seven months of repair, before being returned to active duty. Muzio Attendolo was hit in the midship by one or possibly two bombs, between tower 3 and part of her superstructure, cutting off her main power, and effectively taking her out of the fight.

The B-24 raid lasted for about an hour, ending around 17:28. Of the three cruisers damaged, Muzio Attendolo had suffered the worst. The air-raid had left Muzio Attendolo with no power, damage below the waterline, flooding, and fierce fires aft. The fires had finally been extinguished when another air-raid alarm was sounded at 21:17, sending repair crews and craft scrambling for cover from the anticipated 2nd wave air-attacks. The impending 2nd air-attack would prove to be a false alarm, and the repair personnel and vessels attending Muzio Attendolo would not return to her aid until over an hour later. During that time, the crippled ship had rolled almost 180 degrees and settled to the bottom at her moorings around 22:19. It is believed that the three light cruisers suffered together at least 188 killed (the total number is unknown) and 86 wounded. One sailor was killed on Littorio, and 150 to 250 civilians died as well. Major ships were swiftly moved to La Spezia.

Attendolo was still considered repairable with 10 to 12 months estimated, but because of the precipitating events salvage operations did not begin before the Italian armistice with Allies. The ship was used as a dock with the Allied occupation; after the war's end, given that the structures of the ship were still in a good condition, it was considered the possibility of salvaging it and transforming it into an anti-aircraft cruiser (to be included in the Navy in the place of the old cruiser Luigi Cadorna), but the lack of financial means and the fear that the Allied Commission would oppose the proposal, led to Muzio Attendolo being raised and scrapped instead.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Battle of Taranto</span> Naval battle between the Regia Marina and the Royal Navy; part of the Battle of the Mediterranean

The Battle of Taranto took place on the night of 11–12 November 1940 during the Second World War between British naval forces, under Admiral Andrew Cunningham, and Italian naval forces, under Admiral Inigo Campioni. The Royal Navy launched the first all-aircraft ship-to-ship naval attack in history, employing 21 Fairey Swordfish biplane torpedo bombers from the aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious in the Mediterranean Sea.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Battle of Calabria</span> World War II naval battle

The Battle of Calabria, known to the Italian Navy as the Battle of Punta Stilo, was a naval battle during the Battle of the Mediterranean in the Second World War. Ships of the Italian Regia Marina were opposed by vessels of the British Royal Navy and Royal Australian Navy. The battle occurred 30 miles to the east of Punta Stilo, Calabria, on 9 July 1940. It was one of the few pitched battles of the Mediterranean campaign during the Second World War involving large numbers of ships on both sides. Both sides claimed victory, but in fact the battle was a draw and everyone returned to their bases safely.

<i>Regia Marina</i> 1861–1946 naval branch of Italian military; predecessor of the Marina Militare

The Regia Marina or Royal Italian Navy was the navy of the Kingdom of Italy from 1861 to 1946. In 1946, with the birth of the Italian Republic, the Regia Marina changed its name to Marina Militare.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Second Battle of Sirte</span> 1942 naval battle between British and Italian forces

The Second Battle of Sirte was a naval engagement in the Mediterranean Sea, north of the Gulf of Sidra and southeast of Malta, during the Second World War. The escorting warships of a British convoy to Malta held off a much more powerful squadron of the Regia Marina. The British convoy was composed of four merchant ships, escorted by four light cruisers, one anti-aircraft cruiser and 17 destroyers. The Italian force comprised a battleship, two heavy cruisers, one light cruiser and ten destroyers. Despite the initial British success at warding off the Italian squadron, the Italian fleet attack delayed the convoy's planned arrival before dawn, which exposed it to intense air attacks that sank all four merchant ships and one of the escorting destroyers in the following days.

Italian battleship <i>Vittorio Veneto</i> Fast battleship of the Italian Royal Navy

Vittorio Veneto was the second member of the Littorio-class battleship that served in the Italian Regia Marina during World War II. The ship's keel was laid down in October 1934, launched in July 1937, and readied for service with the Italian fleet by August 1940. She was named after the Italian victory at Vittorio Veneto during World War I, and she had three sister ships: Littorio, Roma, and Impero, though only Littorio and Roma were completed during the war. She was armed with a main battery of nine 381-millimeter (15.0 in) guns in three triple turrets, and could steam at a speed of 30 knots.

Condottieri-class cruiser

The Condottieri class was a sequence of five different light cruiser classes of the Regia Marina, although these classes show a clear line of evolution. They were built before World War II to gain predominance in the Mediterranean Sea. The ships were named after condottieri of Italian history.

Italian battleship <i>Littorio</i> Fast battleship of the Italian Royal Navy

Littorio was the lead ship of her class of battleship; she served in the Italian Regia Marina during World War II. She was named after the Lictor, in ancient times the bearer of the Roman fasces, which was adopted as the symbol of Italian Fascism. Littorio and her sister Vittorio Veneto were built in response to the French battleships Dunkerque and Strasbourg. They were Italy's first modern battleships, and the first 35,000-ton capital ships of any nation to be laid down under the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty. Littorio was laid down in October 1934, launched in August 1937, and completed in May 1940.

<i>Littorio</i>-class battleship Fast battleship class of the Italian Royal Navy

The Littorio class, also known as the Vittorio Veneto class, was a class of battleship of the Regia Marina, the Italian navy. The class was composed of four ships—Littorio, Vittorio Veneto, Roma, and Impero—but only the first three ships of the class were completed. Built between 1934 and 1942, they were the most modern battleships used by Italy during World War II. They were developed in response to the French Dunkerque-class battleships, and were armed with 381-millimeter (15.0 in) guns and had a top speed of 30 knots. The class's design was considered by the Spanish Navy, but the outbreak of World War II interrupted construction plans.

Italian cruiser <i>Gorizia</i> Heavy cruiser of the Italian Royal Navy

Gorizia was the third member of the Zara class of heavy cruisers to be built for the Italian Regia Marina in the 1930s. Named for the town of Gorizia, the ship was laid down at the OTO Livorno shipyard in March 1930, was launched in December that year and was commissioned into the fleet in December 1931. Armed with a main battery of eight 8-inch (200 mm) guns, she was nominally within the 10,000-long-ton (10,000 t) limit imposed by the Washington Naval Treaty, though in reality she significantly exceeded this figure.

Italian cruiser <i>Bolzano</i> Heavy cruiser of the Italian Royal Navy

Bolzano was a unique heavy cruiser, sometimes considered to be a member of the Trento class, built for the Italian Regia Marina in the early 1930s, the last vessel of the type to be built by Italy. A modified version of the earlier Trento class, she had a heavier displacement, slightly shorter length, a newer model of 203-millimeter (8.0 in) gun, and a more powerful propulsion system, among other differences influenced by the Zara class that had followed the Trentos. Bolzano was built by the Gio. Ansaldo & C. between her keel laying in June 1930 and her commissioning in August 1933.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">First Battle of Sirte</span> Naval battle in the Second World War

The First Battle of Sirte was fought between the British Royal Navy and the Regia Marina during the Mediterranean campaign of the Second World War. The engagement took place on 17 December 1941, south-east of Malta, in the Gulf of Sirte.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Operation Excess</span>

Operation Excess was a series of British supply convoys to Malta, Alexandria and Greece in January 1941. The operation encountered the first presence of Luftwaffe anti-shipping aircraft in the Mediterranean Sea. All the convoyed freighters reached their destinations. The destroyer Gallant was disabled by Italian mines and Axis bombers severely damaged the cruiser Southampton and the aircraft carrier Illustrious.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Naval Battles (game)</span>

Naval Battles is a turn-based, card-driven wargame based on naval combat during World War II. Designed by Dan Verssen and published by Phalanx Games, the game is playable by 2 or more players, each commanding a fleet with the objective of sinking a certain amount of their opponents' ships.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Operation Harpoon (1942)</span> British operation during the Second World War

Operation Harpoon or Battle of Pantelleria was one of two simultaneous Allied convoys sent to supply Malta in the Axis-dominated central Mediterranean Sea in mid-June 1942, during the Second World War. Operation Vigorous was a west-bound convoy from Alexandria and Operation Harpoon was an east-bound convoy operation from Gibraltar. Two of the six ships in the Harpoon convoy completed the journey, at the cost of several Allied warships. The Vigorous convoy was driven back by the Italian fleet after being badly damaged by Axis aircraft.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Operation Halberd</span> World War II maintenance convoy operation

Operation Halberd was a British naval operation that took place on 27 September 1941, during the Second World War. The British were attempting to deliver a convoy from Gibraltar to Malta. The convoy was escorted by several battleships and an aircraft carrier, to deter interference from the Italian surface fleet, while a close escort of cruisers and destroyers provided an anti-aircraft screen.

Italian cruiser <i>Raimondo Montecuccoli</i>

Raimondo Montecuccoli was a Condottieri-class light cruiser serving with the Italian Regia Marina during World War II. She survived the war and served in the post-war Marina Militare until 1964.

Italian cruiser <i>Emanuele Filiberto Duca dAosta</i> WWII Italian naval vessel

Emanuele Filiberto Duca d'Aosta was an Italian light cruiser of the fourth group of the Condottieri-class, that served in the Regia Marina during World War II. She survived the war, but was ceded as war reparation to the Soviet Navy in 1949. She was finally renamed Kerch and served in the Black Sea Fleet until the 1960s.

Italian cruiser <i>Eugenio di Savoia</i> Italian and Greek naval vessel (1933–1965)

Eugenio di Savoia was a Condottieri-class light cruiser, which served in the Regia Marina during World War II. She survived the war but was given as a war reparation to the Hellenic Navy in 1950. Eugenio di Savoia was renamed Elli and served until 1965.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bombing of Naples in World War II</span> The bombardment by the Allied Powers from 1940-1944

During World War II the Italian city of Naples suffered approximately 200 air raids by the Allies from 1940 to 1944; only Milan was attacked more frequently. Almost all of the attacks — a total of 181 — were launched in the first nine months of 1943 before the Four days of Naples and the Allied occupation of the city at the beginning of October. Estimates of civilian casualties vary between 20,000 and 25,000 killed.

Italian battleship <i>Roma</i> (1940) Fast battleship of the Italian Royal Navy

Roma, named after two previous ships and the city of Rome, was the third Littorio-class battleship of Italy's Regia Marina. The construction of both Roma and her sister ship Impero was due to rising tensions around the world and the navy's fear that only two Littorios, even in company with older pre-First World War battleships, would not be enough to counter the British and French Mediterranean Fleets. As Roma was laid down almost four years after the first two ships of the class, some small improvements were made to the design, including additional freeboard added to the bow.

References

  1. Paolo Alberini, Franco Prosperini, Dizionario biografico Uomini della Marina 1861-1946, p. 511

Bibliography