Patrick J. Chaisson
History has not been kind to the Italian Royal Navy. Since World War II scholars have largely ignored La Regia Marina Italiana and the often pivotal role it played in the Mediterranean Theater of Operations. By relegating her naval forces to what is essentially a footnote in history, many influential historians suggest that Italy simply was not a worthy foe.
This prejudice also existed during the war, both among Italy’s allies and her adversaries. Privately, Adolf Hitler complained about Italian Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini’s lack of aggressiveness after Italy joined Nazi Germany’s fight against France and Great Britain in the summer of 1940. Hitler’s enemies shared his disdain for Italy’s martial competence. One English broadside from 1943 crowed “that the British Fleet should be pushed out of the Middle [Mediterranean] Sea by a crowd of Italian Jackals is unthinkable.”
Yet the facts tell a far different story. In particular, the Italian submarine Luigi Torelli fought stubbornly for five years, first as a commerce raider and then as a stealthy supply boat. This vessel distinguished itself as one of only two warships to have served with all three Axis powers before final surrender in 1945. The Luigi Torelli also became the center of a diplomatic firestorm when in 1942 its captain deliberately kidnapped several citizens of a neutral nation in his desperate attempt to escape imprisonment.
At the start of hostilities, Italy possessed the world’s fifth largest navy. Her modern, well-armed surface fleet greatly outnumbered the British and French warships then available for service in the Mediterranean. Italy’s submarine force totaled 117 vessels, second only to Soviet Russia and more than double the number of operational U-boats with the Germany Kriegsmarine. On paper anyway, the Regia Marina represented a formidable fighting force.
Such potential appealed to Hitler, whose own navy remained woefully outgunned by its enemies’ powerful fleets despite a massive rearmament program initiated under the Nazis. In May 1939, Hitler and Mussolini signed the “Pact of Steel,” pledging mutual economic and military cooperation. As part of this alliance, Hitler could now count on Italy’s Regia Marina to fight a “parallel war” in the Mediterranean, which freed German forces to concentrate on operations in the North Atlantic.
One month after Germany and Italy joined forces, representatives from both nations’ navies met in Friedrichshafen, Germany, to discuss maritime cooperation. During this conference, the Italian high command further agreed to support Germany’s Atlantic Ocean campaign with its fleet of long-range submarines, once Italy entered the war. This arrangement, so simple in principle, led to many unforeseen consequences over the next few years.
One immediate complication concerned the fact that much of Italy’s navy was designed for the shallow waters of the Mediterranean Sea. Only a small number of her ocean-going fleet submarines could be considered suitable for Atlantic operations. Among them were six new Marconi-class boats built from 1939 to 1940. Large, fast, and well-armed, these capable warships compared favorably with Germany’s Type IXB U-boats then stalking Allied merchant shipping in the North Atlantic.
The fourth Marconi-class submarine to be built came down the ways at Odero-Terni-Orlando’s yards in La Spezia on January 6, 1940. Named Luigi Torelli (after a 19th century Italian patriot), she was commissioned in the Regia Marina four months later. Capitano di Fregata (Commander) Aldo Cocchia became the boat’s first captain.
Measuring over 250 feet in length, the Torelli displaced 1,036 tons surfaced and 1,489 tons submerged. Equipped with two 3,600-horsepower C.R.D.A. diesel engines, she could make 17.75 knots on the surface, while a pair of Marelli electric motors rated at 1,240-horsepower drove her to a top underwater speed of 8.2 knots. The Luigi Torelli could dive to an operational depth of 300 feet, and her range exceeded 9,500 nautical miles.
Primary weapons consisted of four 21-inch torpedo tubes in the bow and four astern, with a total of 12 Fiume torpedoes on board. A 100-mm deck gun and two twin 13.2-mm Breda antiaircraft machine guns rounded out her armament. The Torelli’s crew complement included seven officers and 50 enlisted sailors.
When Italy declared war on France and the United Kingdom on July 10, 1940, the Luigi Torelli was undergoing sea trials in the Mediterranean. Following an uneventful reconnaissance mission in the Gulf of Genoa, Capitano Cocchia then received orders assigning his vessel to the Italian Navy’s new submarine base at Bordeaux, France, codenamed BETASOM.
This top-secret facility got its designation by combining the Regia Marina’s phonetic term for “B” (signifying Bordeaux) and sommergibile, the Italian word for submarine. BETASOM, together with several German U-boat bases, was established in the aftermath of France’s unexpectedly sudden collapse during the summer of 1940. From these ports along the Bay of Biscay, Axis navies now had easy access to the Atlantic Ocean, dramatically extending the operational reach of their ocean-going submarines.
While Germany began constructing U-boat pens on the Atlantic coast at St. Nazaire, Lorient, and Brest, the Italian Navy selected Bordeaux—50 miles inland along the Gironde Estuary—for its new submarine base. This decision proved to be a wise one, as BETASOM was hit by Allied bombers far less than Germany’s coastal installations. Manned by more than 1,600 Italian naval personnel and French laborers, BETASOM had facilities for as many as 30 submarines.
Departing La Spezia on August 31, 1940, the Luigi Torelli slipped past British patrols in the Strait of Gibraltar to conduct anti-shipping operations off the Azores Islands. She then made her way along the French coast and up the treacherous Gironde Estuary to arrive at BETASOM on October 5. There the sub received both a new commander—Capitano Primo Longobardo—and assignment to the XI Submarine Group under Contrammiraglo (Rear Admiral) Angelo Parona.
Parona’s orders were to join forces with the Kriegsmarine’s U-boat fleet, then operating off the United Kingdom’s Western Approaches. In charge of this effort was Admiral Karl Dönitz, the brilliant, charismatic naval leader charged by Hitler to choke off the flow of supplies that England needed to keep fighting. His small fleet of U-boats had been doing just that for more than a year, but remained too few in number to make a measurable impact on the British war effort.
Initially, Dönitz welcomed the Italians. Their modern vessels and well-trained crews essentially doubled his combat power, allowing the Axis to greatly increase patrol activity along the sea lanes surrounding England. Whatever the Regia Marina’s sailors lacked in practical experience his officers could teach them, and soon Italian submarine commanders began accompanying U-boat skippers on wartime operations. Following indoctrination into Kriegsmarine tactics and procedures, the men of XI Submarine Group were judged ready by the end of autumn.
On November 12, the Luigi Torelli began her first Atlantic war patrol. Ten days later, though, she was forced to turn around due to problems with her electric motors. Following extensive repairs at BETASOM, Torelli set out again on January 9, 1941. This second cruise, conducted off the coast of Scotland, would prove far more productive.
At dusk on January 15, Longobardo sighted a small enemy convoy and moved in on the surface to attack. The first merchantman to feel Torelli’s wrath was the 4,079-ton Brask, a Norwegian-flagged freighter, which went down along with 12 of her 38 crewmen. Torelli struck again 28 minutes later, torpedoing Nemea, a 5,101-ton Greek vessel. On the following day, the Luigi Torelli used torpedoes and her deck gun to sink another Greek-registered cargo ship, the 3,111-ton Nicolaos Filinis.
With the destruction of the 5,198-ton British steamer Urla, she concluded her maiden patrol on January 28. Back at BETASOM on February 4, Torelli underwent routine maintenance as well as another change of commanders. Tenente di Vascala (Lieutenant) Antonio De Giacomo took over for Longobardo, who was reassigned to command another vessel.
Refitted and with a new skipper, the Luigi Torelli left port in April for a month-long cruise off Scotland that yielded no kills. Her third mission revealed much about how conditions in the Atlantic had changed. Operating off Gibraltar, Torelli twice attempted to approach Allied convoys but was driven off by escorting warships. Eventually, she found and sank the unescorted 8,913-ton Norwegian tanker Ida Knudsen on July 21.
Two subsequent Atlantic patrols under freshly-promoted Capitano di Corvetta (Lieutenant Commander) Di Giacomo netted the Luigi Torelli no new victories but did result in an unexpected honor after she aided in the rescue of 254 German sailors marooned by the destruction of the commerce raider Atlantis. Admiral Dönitz himself pinned the award of Iron Cross First Class to Di Giacomo’s uniform in recognition of Torelli’s lifesaving efforts.
By early 1942, Italian submarines no longer played a role in Dönitz’ North Atlantic anti-shipping campaign. The Kriegsmarine now had on hand sufficient quantities of smaller, nimbler German Type VII boats; this meant XI Submarine Group could now send its large ocean-going vessels out to conduct operations against Mussolini’s newest enemy, the United States. Luigi Torelli left for the Caribbean on February 2, to patrol a sector off the French island of Martinique.
En route to the West Indies, Torelli happened across and sank the British-flagged Scottish Star, a 7,224-ton freighter, on February 19. The submarine’s largest and final victim went down six days later when the Esso Copenhagen, a 9,245-ton Panamanian tanker, succumbed to her torpedoes and deck gun 480 miles east of Trinidad.
Returning to BETASOM on March 31, Luigi Torelli underwent another command change when Tenente di Vasello (Ship-of-the-line lieutenant) Augusto Migliorini took over as skipper. Her next cruise proved to be short-lived, but auspicious. While transiting the Bay of Biscay during the night of June 3, she was caught on the surface by an RAF Vickers Wellington patrol bomber equipped with a powerful new device called the Leigh Light. Illuminating Torelli, the “Wimpy” then straddled her with a salvo of four 250-pound depth charges.
The submarine was badly damaged in this surprise aerial attack, as Secondo Capo Mechanista (Second Chief Mechanician) Carlo Pracchi recalled: “It sounds as if every gauge in the control room is shattering. All the valves are shut down. The glass of the depth gauge breaks. I can see drips on the heads of the rivets in the frames. I touch one with my finger and water runs down my arm. Then we get another depth charge and the drips start to run down themselves.
“The main relays shut down. The lights have just gone. We’ll have to use the emergency lighting. I feel my leg cramp up, then the tingling starts, then shaking…The effect on my legs doesn’t stop; I use my arms to try to suppress it, holding my knees. It makes no difference.”
With its gyrocompass shattered, steering gear damaged, and batteries leaking poisonous fumes, the Luigi Torelli was in no condition to continue its mission. Heading for the French port of St. Jean de Luz, Migliorini became disoriented by fog and instead ran his boat on the rocks near Spain’s Cape Peñas. It took several Spanish tugs all day to pull the Torelli clear and tow her to the small anchorage at Avilés.
Under international law combatant warships may remain in a neutral port for just 24 hours, after which time both boat and crew are liable to be interned. So the Luigi Torelli had no choice but to limp off for Bordeaux after nightfall on June 5, only to be spotted the next morning by two Royal Australian Air Force Short Sunderland flying boats. Absorbing accurate fire from the Torelli’s antiaircraft weapons, both Sunderlands pressed in with machine guns blazing to drop depth charges close alongside the luckless submarine. The explosions ripped a huge hole in her hull, wounding two men, including the captain, and killing a third.
While damage control parties worked frantically to contain the flooding, enginemen restarted Luigi Torelli’s diesels. The submarine was listing so badly that at one point all hands lined up on deck to counterbalance it. Somehow the crew managed to get the boat under way, eventually beaching her on a sandbank outside the small Spanish harbor of Santander.
Of course there was now no way the Torelli could be made seaworthy within a day, and she was duly interned by Spanish authorities. Local officials patched the boat up enough so it could be towed to a nearby naval base, enlisting her crew to work on technical systems unfamiliar to the Spaniards.
As a safety precaution, the Italian internees were at their stations aboard Luigi Torelli when, on July 14, a tugboat began towing the prize into Santander’s inner basin for delivery to its new owners. Suddenly, from down inside the boat a diesel engine coughed into life. Then a sailor cast off the line connecting Torelli with her tug, and the battered submarine turned toward international waters and freedom. On the bridge, two shocked Spanish naval officers raised their voices in a loud but futile protest—when offered the choice of boarding a nearby fishing vessel or a one-way trip to Bordeaux, the two officers glumly chose the former.
The Luigi Torelli made it to BETASOM the next day, sparking a nasty international incident with neutral Spain. The diplomatic furor died down long before Torelli again became fit for service, but as 1943 dawned, it appeared her days as a commerce raider were numbered.
With Di Giacomo back in command, the submarine set out in February for a patrol off Belém, Brazil. On March 16, American Consolidated PBY Catalina flying boats attacked the vessel while she was surfaced, inflicting considerable damage. Although her gunners managed to shoot down one Catalina, the Luigi Torelli had to return home early for repairs once again. Upon docking in Bordeaux, her crew learned of a new mission that would take them farther from home than anyone might have imagined.
For quite some time, Dönitz had been dissatisfied with the Regia Marina’s lackluster record against Allied shipping compared with that of his U-boat fleet. Italian submarines dived too slowly, Dönitz claimed, while their mechanical reliability left much to be desired. The Italian boats’ enormous superstructures, poor maneuverability, and slow surface speed also limited their effectiveness in night combat, the Kriegsmarine’s preferred method of attack.
Furthermore, several battle-tested U-boat commanders said their Italian counterparts lacked the aggressive spirit needed to score victories against increasingly well protected Allied convoys.
“Despite the efforts to raise their performance through constant influence…they [Italian submarine captains] remain uniformly unsatisfactory,” Dönitz wrote. “They see nothing, report nothing, or too late, their tactical ability is likewise nil.”
Indeed, Italy’s 32 Atlantic-based submarines could take credit for a mere 600,000 tons (109 ships) sunk in three years of war—less than the tonnage destroyed by a similar number of German U-boats during just two months in the summer of 1941. While design flaws, tactical blunders, and poor leadership help explain this disparity, it must also be remembered that the Kriegsmarine assigned its most lucrative patrol sectors to German U-boat commanders and not the Italians.
By early 1943, Germany had assumed a clear position of dominance both in terms of submarine production and tactical employment. In February of that year, 27 new U-boats were launched, nearly one per day. These lethal new undersea hunters required trained crews, however, and on February 20, Dönitz proposed to Hitler an innovative solution to the U-boat manning crisis.
Arguing that the Italian fleet submarines were no longer adequate for combat operations, Dönitz proposed 10 of them be repurposed as transports, specially modified to carry strategic war materiel to and from the Far East. Since by this point Allied forces had either sunk or bottled up most of Germany’s surface fleet, Dönitz’ plan seemed viable. To sweeten the deal, Germany offered the Regia Marina 10 new Type VIIC U-boats as compensation for their Bordeaux-based vessels. Both parties profited from this exchange. Italy received the latest in submarine technology while Germany now had 10 boats in service which it did not need to man.
Hitler and Mussolini each approved the plan, which was called Operation Merkator. Although controlled by the Germans, all transport submarines would remain Italian-crewed. Outbound, their cargo included military technology such as new radar equipment and rapid-fire cannon intended for Japan’s armed services. Returning, the boats were to carry rubber, quinine, and other raw materials desperately needed by the Axis powers in Europe. Specially trained technicians and exchange officers would also make the 11,400-mile journey between Bordeaux and Singapore.
The project, codenamed Aquila by the Italians, got off to a bad start when Allied forces sank three of the 10 submarines before modification could begin. The seven remaining boats, among them the Luigi Torelli, then went through a six-week conversion process which left them capable of carrying 150 tons of cargo. All armament except antiaircraft guns was stripped, while torpedo tubes were replaced by extra fuel tanks. To make more room for freight, a portion of each vessel’s battery bank was also removed.
Now under the command of Tenente di Vasello Enrico Gropalli and re-named the Aquila VI, the former Luigi Torelli left Bordeaux for the Far East on June 14, 1943. Aboard were several German technicians, as well as Col. Kinze Sateke, a Japanese communications officer returning from radio school in Germany. The boat was loaded with 800 Mauser aircraft cannon, two “Würzburg” antiaircraft radar sets, and an unfused 500-kg aerial bomb.
The journey was eventful. On August 12, with oil bunkers almost dry, the Aquila VI met with U-178 in the Indian Ocean to take on needed diesel fuel. Somehow she managed to avoid contact with Allied patrols for 73 days, arriving in Sabang, Sumatra, on August 26 and the German U-boat base at Penang, Malaya, three days later. August 31 saw Aquila VI put in at Singapore.
On September 8, Italy surrendered. In response, Axis forces seized the Aquila VI and two other Italian submarines then docked at Singapore’s harbor. Commissioned as UIT-25, the former Luigi Torelli now flew Nazi Germany’s naval ensign.
When Benito Mussolini formed the “Repubblica Sociale Italiana”on September 20, the former Torelli crew could walk out of their POW camps and continue fighting for the Axis merely by swearing allegiance to Il Duce’s new puppet state. This also worked well for the UIT-25’s new commander, Oberleutnant zur See (Lieutenant Junior Grade) Werner Striegler. Personnel shortages in the Far East command meant a mixed company of Italians and Germans took UIT-25 to Kobe, Japan, in February 1944.
In German service, the UIT-25 made several successful supply runs between its base at Kobe and Axis outposts such as Penang, Surabaya, Java, and Singapore. A succession of commanders skippered the sub, which underwent a major overhaul at Kobe during the spring of 1945. On March 17, American Boeing B-29 Superfortress bombers targeted the shipyard where UIT-25 was laid up, killing one of her German crewmen.
Germany capitulated on May 10, prompting Japan to commission this frequently renamed vessel as I-504. Her sister ship, the ex-Capellini, was also appropriated, making them the only warships of World War II to have flown the flags of all three Axis navies.
Lieutenant Hirota Hideo was assigned as commander of the I-504 on July 15, 1945. The crew included Japanese naval personnel and former Europeans now serving as “technical volunteers.” Their task now was to provide early warning of the Allied invasion fleet, expected to arrive off Japan’s home shores at any moment.
The last weeks of the war were confusing ones indeed for Lt. Hirota and his Italian-German-Japanese crew. Communication on board the I-504 must have been a challenge, but this long-serving submarine was not quite done making history. At least one source credits I-504 with downing a U.S Army Air Forces North American B-25 Mitchell bomber on August 30, 1945, possibly the last victory scored by an Axis warship before hostilities ceased.
Taken over by the U.S. Navy, the one-time Luigi Torelli was scuttled in the Kii Channel off Kobe on April 16, 1946.
Very interesting story! Thanks!