Italian Destroyer Ugolino Vivaldi

''Ugolino Vivaldi'' was one of twelve s built for the (Royal Italian Navy) between the late 1920s and the early 1930s.

Design and description

The Navigatori-class destroyers were designed to counter the large French destroyers of the and es. They had an overall length of , a beam of and a mean draft of .Whitley, p. 162 They displaced at standard load, and at deep load. Their complement during wartime was 222–225 officers and enlisted men.

The ''Navigatori''s were powered by two Parsons geared steam turbines, each driving one propeller shaft using steam supplied by four Odero-Terni-Orlando water-tube boilers. The turbines were designed to produce and a speed of in service, although the ships reached speeds of during their sea trials while lightly loaded.Roberts, p. 299 They carried enough fuel oil to give them a range of at a speed of .Ando, p. 16

Their main battery consisted of six guns in three twin-gun turrets, one each fore and aft of the superstructure and the third amidships.Fraccaroli, p. 49 Anti-aircraft (AA) defense for the Navigatori-class ships was provided by a pair of AA guns in single mounts abreast the forward funnel and a pair of twin-gun mounts for machine guns. They were equipped with six torpedo tubes in two triple mounts amidships. The Navigatoris could carry 86–104 mines.

Construction and career

''Ugolino Vivaldi'' was laid down by Odero-Terni-Orlando at their Genoa-Sestri Ponente shipyard on 16 May 1927, launched on 9 January 1929 and commissioned on 6 March 1930.

During the 1930s, ''Vivaldi'' largely operated with the Italian fleet, participating in exercises in the Mediterranean Sea. Between December 1930 and January 1931 she and seven sister ships were deployed in the Atlantic Ocean in support of Italo Balbo's transatlantic flight from Italy to Brazil. Between 1936 and 1938, ''Vivaldi'' also participated in the Spanish Civil War, that saw heavy Italian naval involvement in support of Francisco Franco's forces.

Originally classified as an '' esploratore'' (flotilla leader/scout cruiser), ''Vivaldi'' was re-rated as a destroyer in 1938. In 1939-1940 she underwent modification work to her bow.

World War II

When Italy entered World War II, on 10 June 1940, ''Vivaldi'', under Captain Giovanni Galati was the flagship of the 14th Destroyer Division, which she formed along with sisterships , and .

In August 1940, ''Vivaldi'' rammed and sank a submarine, HMS ''Oswald'', then rescuing nearly her entire crew. In the next year and a half she escorted dozens of supply convoys between Italy and North Africa and gained a reputation for "never losing a ship". This was credited to the fact that Captain Galati often disregarded orders coming from Supermarina, instead basing his decisions on his own assessment and experience; like other officers at the time, he was convinced that traitors hiding in the high ranks were informing the Allies about the convoys sailing for Africa, and that disregarding the instructions would reduce the risk of being intercepted (actually, the interception of many convoys was not caused by traitors, but instead by ULTRA intercepts, whose existence was unknown to the Axis). During escort operations in late 1941 and early 1942, Vivaldi often served as flagship for Admiral Amedeo Nomis di Pollone, commander of the Fleet Destroyer Group.

In June 1942 ''Vivaldi'', now under Captain Ignazio Castrogiovanni, participated in an attack against a British convoy to Malta ( Operation Harpoon) and, while clashing with the escorting destroyers, received a hit in the engine rooms that started a massive fire and left her dead in the water. The crippled ''Vivaldi'' and her consort ''Malocello'' ended up facing five British destroyers ( ''Bedouin'', ''Partridge'', ''Marne'', ''Matchless'', ''Ithuriel''), and at one point Captain Castrogiovanni radioed "''I will fight to the last, long live the king''" and ordered ''Malocello'' to abandon ''Vivaldi'' to her fate and save herself. ''Malocello'' refused, and remained to protect her disabled sistership. At this point the British escort leader, who at the time was facing the bulk of the Italian attack force (two cruisers and another three destroyers) a few miles away, recalled his destroyers to disengage ''Vivaldi'' and ''Malocello'' and assist in the main battle. The fire on ''Vivaldi'' burned for hours, virtually cutting the ship in two, with the crew in the bow unable to go to the stern and vice versa, but in the end the flames were extinguished and she was towed to port. Repairs for this damage took nearly one year.

On 9 September 1943, following the Italian Armistice, ''Vivaldi'' and sistership ''Da Noli'' were ordered to sail from Genoa to Civitavecchia, near Rome, where they would embark the king and the government and bring them to La Maddalena, Sardinia, to prevent them from being captured by the German forces, that had launched Operation Achse. However when the two ships arrived near Civitavecchia, the order was rescinded, as the Germans had already taken the Rome-Civitavecchia road and the king had fled towards Pescara, on the opposite coast of Italy. ''Vivaldi'' and ''Da Noli'' were ordered to sail west to meet the rest of the Italian fleet off La Maddalena, and once they were there, they were ordered to engage German craft that were transferring German troops from Sardinia to Corsica. They did so, and sank or damaged some of these craft, but they ended under fire from the coastal batteries on the Corsican coast, whose personnel – belonging to the Blackshirts – had turned over to the Germans. ''Da Noli'' sank on a mine, and ''Vivaldi'' was badly damaged, but managed to limp away. A few hours later, while sailing west at reduced speed, she was attacked again by German bombers, and further damaged by a Henschel Hs 293 guided missile. She still carried on for some more hours at a speed of a few knots, while the crew struggled to save the ship; but in the end her badly damaged engines ceased working, and her commanding officer, Captain Francesco Camicia, ordered her scuttled. ''Vivaldi'' sank on 10 September, about 50 miles west of Asinara island, taking down with her Lieutenant Commander Alessandro Cavriani and petty officer Virginio Fasan, who had gone back aboard to speed up her sinking.

Some of ''Vivaldis survivors were rescued by German floatplanes that were strafed and destroyed by American aircraft immediately thereafter, killing some of them. Others were picked up by a German vessel and ended up in POW camps in Germany, and some were rescued by an American floatplane. Another group was picked up by a British submarine, HMS ''Sportsman'', which brought them to Algeria, and dozens more reached the Balearic Islands (Spain) after spending days at sea in various boats, some of them staying adrift for a week or more. Overall, 58 members of her crew were lost, and 240 were rescued or managed to reach Spain.

References

Bibliography

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External links

Ugolino Vivaldi
Marina Militare website

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ugolino Vivaldi
Navigatori-class destroyers
Ships built in Italy
1929 ships
World War II destroyers of Italy
Maritime incidents in September 1943
Destroyers sunk by aircraft
Ships sunk by German aircraft
World War II shipwrecks in the Mediterranean Sea
Ships built by Cantieri navali Odero