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![]() German submarine UIT24 in the Inland Sea, Japan in August 1944. | |
History | |
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Name | Comandante Cappellini |
Laid down | 25 April 1938 |
Launched | 14 May 1939 |
Commissioned | 23 September 1939 |
Renamed | Aquilla III in May 1943 |
Fate | Captured by Japan on 10 September 1943 and handed over to Germany |
Service record as Comandante Cappellini | |
Commanders: |
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Victories: | 5 merchant ships sunk (31,648 GRT) |
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Name | UIT-24 |
Acquired | 10 September 1943 |
Commissioned | 6 December 1943 |
Fate | Incorporated into Japanese Navy after German surrender on 10 May 1945 |
Notes | Mixed Italian / German crew |
Service record as UIT-24 [1] | |
Part of: |
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Commanders: | |
Operations: | 6 patrols |
Victories: | None |
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Name | I-503 |
Acquired | 10 May 1945 |
Commissioned | 14 July 1945 |
Fate | Captured by the U.S. Navy in August 1945 and scuttled on 16 April 1946 |
Notes | Mixed Italian / German / Japanese crew |
Service record as I-503 [3] | |
Commanders: |
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Operations: | None |
Victories: | None |
General characteristics | |
Class and type | Marcello-class submarine |
Displacement |
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Length | 73 m (239 ft 6 in) |
Beam | 7.19 m (23 ft 7 in) |
Draught | 5.1 m (16 ft 9 in) |
Propulsion | |
Speed | |
Complement | 58 |
Armament |
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Italian submarine Comandante Cappellini was a World War II Italian Marcello-class submarine built for the Italian Royal Navy (Italian : Regia Marina). After Italy's surrender, the submarine was captured by the Japanese and handed over to Germany as UIT-24. Following the capitulation of Germany, the Japanese integrated the boat into their fleet as I-503 (Japanese : 伊号第五百三潜水艦). Following the end of the war, the United States scuttled the submarine in 1946.
Operating under the command of Capitano di corvetta Cristiano Masi, later Capitano di corvetta Salvatore Todaro, then of Tenente di vascello Aldo Lenzi, later of Tenente di vascello Marco Revedin and Capitano di corvetta Walter Auconi, Comandante Cappellini carried out several war patrols in the Atlantic Ocean while based in BETASOM, sinking 31,648 gross registered ton of enemy shipping. She participated in the rescue of the survivors of the Laconia in September 1942. Was later converted to the transport of strategic materials to and from Japan. [4] After Italy's capitulation in 1943, the submarine was captured by the Imperial Japanese Navy and handed over to Germany at Sabang on 10 September 1943. Commissioned into the Kriegsmarine as foreign U-boat UIT-24 and assigned to 12th U-boat Flotilla with a mixed Italian and German crew. She remained in the Pacific because of failed attempts to return to the 12th Flotilla base at Bordeaux in occupied France.
At Germany's surrender in May 1945, the submarine was taken over and commissioned into the Imperial Japanese Navy as I-503 (her crew now a mixture of Italians, Germans, and Japanese) and shuttled between ports as a transport submarine. At Japan's surrender in August 1945, she was seized by the United States Navy, which scuttled her off Kobe on 16 April 1946.
Cappellini is mentioned (and seen briefly in some scenes) in the 2011 TV movie The Sinking of the Laconia . The "Capellini" and her crew are the main subject of a Japanese two hour TV 2022 special "Sensuikan Cappellini-go no Boken" (The adventure of the Submarine Cappellini). The vessel plays a central part in the upcoming 2023 Italian war film Comandante . [5]
Date | Ship Name | Nationality | Tonnage (GRT) | Fate |
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15 October 1940 | Kabalo | ![]() | 5,186 | Sunk |
5 January 1941 | Shakespeare | ![]() | 5,029 | Sunk |
14 January 1941 | Eumaeus | ![]() | 7,472 | Sunk |
18 May 1942 | Tisnaren | ![]() | 5,747 | Sunk |
31 May 1942 | RFA Dinsdale | ![]() | 8,214 | Sunk |
Total: | 31,648 |
The Laconia incident was a series of events surrounding the sinking of a British passenger ship in the Atlantic Ocean on 12 September 1942, during World War II, and a subsequent aerial attack on German and Italian submarines involved in rescue attempts. RMS Laconia, carrying 2,732 crew, passengers, soldiers, and prisoners of war, was torpedoed and sunk by U-156, a German U-boat, off the West African coast. Operating partly under the dictates of the old prize rules, the U-boat's commander, Korvettenkapitän Werner Hartenstein, immediately commenced rescue operations. U-156 broadcast her position on open radio channels to all Allied powers nearby, and was joined by the crews of several other U-boats in the vicinity.
German submarine U-429 was a Type VIIC U-boat of Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine originally built for the Italian Regia Marina during World War II. Her keel was laid down on 14 September 1942 by Danziger Werft of Danzig. She was then commissioned as S-4 on 14 July 1943 under the command of Tenente di vascello Angelo Amendolia.
The Regia Marina (RM) 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.
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The Marcello class was a class of nine submarines built in 1937 and 1938 by CRDA in Trieste for the Royal Italian Navy. Two similar submarines built in 1939 at La Spezia by Oto Melara are sometimes considered part of the class. All eleven served in the Mediterranean Sea at the start of the Second World War. After Provana's 1940 sinking, the remaining boats were transferred to the BETASOM Atlantic submarine base at Bordeaux in August 1940. After four boats had been sunk in the Atlantic, Barbarigo and Comandante Cappellini were then selected for conversion to "transport submarines" in order to exchange rare or irreplaceable trade goods with Japan. Cargo capacity of 160 tons reduced reserve buoyancy from 20–25% to 3.5–6%; and armament was reduced to defensive machine guns. Only Dandolo was in operational condition at the end of the war.
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