The ''Torpedoboot Ausland'' ("foreign torpedo boats") were small
destroyer
In naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast, maneuverable, long-endurance warship intended to escort
larger vessels in a fleet, convoy, or carrier battle group and defend them against a wide range of general threats. They were conceived i ...
s or large
torpedo boat
A torpedo boat is a relatively small and fast naval ship designed to carry torpedoes into battle. The first designs were steam-powered craft dedicated to ramming enemy ships with explosive spar torpedoes. Later evolutions launched variants of ...
s captured by
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...
and incorporated into the
Kriegsmarine
The (, ) was the navy of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It superseded the Imperial German Navy of the German Empire (1871–1918) and the inter-war (1919–1935) of the Weimar Republic. The was one of three official military branch, branche ...
. They were assigned a number beginning with TA.
Ex-French ships
*Former French s, under construction in France. None were completed for the Germans.
[Conway p271]
:* (ex ''Le Fier''): Scuttled while incomplete August 1944
:* (ex ''L'Agile''): Scuttled while incomplete August 1944
:* (ex ''L'Alsacien''): Broken up 1944
:* (ex ''L'Entreprenant''): Broken up 1944
:* (ex ''Le Farouche''): Scuttled while incomplete August 1944
:* (ex ''Le Corse''): Scuttled while incomplete August 1944
*Former French
''La Melpomène''-class torpedo boat
A torpedo boat is a relatively small and fast naval ship designed to carry torpedoes into battle. The first designs were steam-powered craft dedicated to ramming enemy ships with explosive spar torpedoes. Later evolutions launched variants of ...
s taken over in April 1943
:* (ex ''Bombarde'') sunk by air raid 23 August 1944 in the
Tyrrhenian Sea
The Tyrrhenian Sea (, ; or ) , , , , is part of the Mediterranean Sea off the western coast of Italy. It is named for the Tyrrhenians, Tyrrhenian people identified with the Etruscans of Italy.
Geography
The sea is bounded by the islands of C ...
:* (ex ''La Pomone'') heavily damaged by off
Lindos
Lindos (; ) is an archaeological site, a fishing village and a former municipality on the island of Rhodes, in the Dodecanese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform, it is part of the municipality Rhodes, of which it is a municipal unit. ...
on 23 September 1943, later scuttled at
Rhodes
Rhodes (; ) is the largest of the Dodecanese islands of Greece and is their historical capital; it is the List of islands in the Mediterranean#By area, ninth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Administratively, the island forms a separ ...
:* (ex ''L'Iphigénie'') sunk by Italian
MAS boats at
Piombino
Piombino is an Italian town and ''comune'' of about 35,000 inhabitants in the province of Livorno (Tuscany). It lies on the border between the Ligurian Sea and the Tyrrhenian Sea, in front of Elba Island and at the northern side of Maremma.
Ov ...
on 11 September 1943
:* (ex ''Baliste'') not used by the Germans because of poor material condition
:* (ex ''La Bayonnaise'') not used by the Germans because of poor material condition
Ex-Norwegian ships
* Former
Royal Norwegian Navy
The Royal Norwegian Navy () is the branch of the Norwegian Armed Forces responsible for navy, naval operations of Norway, including those of the Norwegian Coast Guard. , the Royal Norwegian Navy consists of approximately 3,700 personnel (9,450 i ...
s,
[Conway p379] (also referred to as "Improved ''Sleipnir'' destroyers) captured during the
German invasion of Norway in 1940, while still under construction and yet to be named. Taken over and designated ZN (''Zerstörer Norwegen'') 4 & 5, they were reclassified as torpedo boats in 1941.
:* (ex-ZN-4): Launched but not completed due to sabotage by the
Norwegian resistance movement
The Norwegian resistance (Norwegian language, Norwegian: ''Motstandsbevegelsen'') to the German occupation of Norway, occupation of Norway by Nazi Germany began after Operation Weserübung in 1940 and ended in 1945. It took several forms:
*As ...
:* (ex-ZN-5): Launched but not completed
*Four other vessels, (of the
''Sleipner''-class torpedo boats/destroyers) were also taken over, but were named for past German gunboats and not included in the TA class.
* One more ex-Norwegian small destroyer,
''Troll'', was also captured and served in the Kriegsmarine as torpedo boat for a brief time before being converted to a distillation vessel to provide steam, retaining her Norwegian name. The conversion was due to her obsolete nature.
Ex-Italian ships
*: (ex-, Italian ), captured in
Piraeus
Piraeus ( ; ; , Ancient: , Katharevousa: ) is a port city within the Athens urban area ("Greater Athens"), in the Attica region of Greece. It is located southwest of Athens city centre along the east coast of the Saronic Gulf in the Ath ...
, September 1943. Served in the
Aegean Sea
The Aegean Sea is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea between Europe and Asia. It is located between the Balkans and Anatolia, and covers an area of some . In the north, the Aegean is connected to the Marmara Sea, which in turn con ...
and sunk by
US Army Air Force
The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...
in
Salamis on 16 September 1944.
[Conway p299]
*: (ex-''Francesco Crispi'', Italian ), Captured in the Aegean in September 1943. Sunk by air raid near
Heraklion
Heraklion or Herakleion ( ; , , ), sometimes Iraklion, is the largest city and the administrative capital city, capital of the island of Crete and capital of Heraklion (regional unit), Heraklion regional unit. It is the fourth largest city in G ...
on 8 March 1944. 34 men were killed.
[Conway p298]
*: (ex-''Castelfidardo'', Italian ), captured in the Aegean Sea, September 1943. Sunk at Heraklion after damage by RAF air raid
[Conway p287]
*: (ex-''San Martino'', Italian ) captured in Piraeus 9 September 1943. Operated in the Aegean, Scuttled 12 October 1944 after damage in an air raid on Salamis.
[Conway p287]
*: (ex-''Solferino'', Italian ''Palestro''-class destroyer), captured in Piraeus 9 September 1943. Operated in the Aegean, sunk by British destroyers and 19 October 1944.
*: (ex-''Calatafimi'', Italian ''Curtatone''-class destroyer), captured in the Aegean Sea, September 1943. Sunk by Greek submarine ''Pipinos'' on 9 August 1944.
*: ex-''
Audace'', Italian
''Audace''-class destroyer. Operated in the Adriatic. Sunk by British s and south of
Lussino on 1 November 1944.
[Conway p287]
*: (ex-''Insidioso'', Italian ), Sunk by aircraft torpedo in
Fiume
Rijeka (;
Fiume ( fjuːme in Italian and in Fiuman Venetian) is the principal seaport and the third-largest city in Croatia. It is located in Primorje-Gorski Kotar County on Kvarner Bay, an inlet of the Adriatic Sea and in 2021 had a po ...
on 5 November 1944
TA21 at german-navy.de
/ref>[Conway p286]
*: (ex-''Giuseppe Missori'', Italian ''Pilo''-class destroyer), Served in the Adriatic.[Conway p286] Severely damaged in airstrike by Tuskegee Airmen
The Tuskegee Airmen were a group of primarily African American military pilots (fighter and bomber) and airmen who fought in World War II. They formed the 332nd Fighter Group and the 477th Fighter Group, 477th Bombardment Group (Medium) of th ...
on 25 June 1944; decommissioned on 8 November and scuttled on 5 February 1945.[Conway p303]
* : (ex-''Arturo'', Italian ). Sunk (with ''TA29'') in action with British destroyers and in the Battle of the Ligurian Sea on 18 March 1945.[Conway p303]
*: (ex-''Intrepido'', Italian ''Ciclone''-class torpedo boat). Served on the west coast of Italy.Portoferraio
Portoferraio () is a town and ''comune'' in the province of Livorno, on the edge of the eponymous harbour of the island of Elba. It is the island's largest town. Because of its terrain, many of its buildings are situated on the slopes of a tiny h ...
on 9 September 1944.Genoa
Genoa ( ; ; ) is a city in and the capital of the Italian region of Liguria, and the sixth-largest city in Italy. As of 2025, 563,947 people live within the city's administrative limits. While its metropolitan city has 818,651 inhabitan ...
on 4 September 1944.
* (ex-''Eridano'', Italian ''Ariete''-class torpedo boat). Sunk (with ''TA24'') in action with British destroyers in the Battle of the Ligurian Sea on 18 March 1945.[Conway p299]
*: Former which was captured by the Regia Marina
The , ) (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 (''Repubblica Italiana''), the changed its name to '' Marina Militare'' ("Military Navy").
Origin ...
in 1941 and renamed ''Premuda''. Re-built by the Germans as a radar picket
A radar picket is a radar-equipped station, ship, submarine, aircraft, or vehicle used to increase the radar detection range around a nation or military (including naval) force to protect it from surprise attack, typically air attack, or from c ...
destroyer armed with 105 mm guns. Commissioned 18 August 1944 and served on the west coast of Italy. Lightly damaged by British destroyers in March 1945 during the Battle of the Ligurian Sea. Scuttled in Genoa 25 April 1945.[Conway p301]
*: (ex-''Corsaro'', ex ''Squadrista'', Italian ). Not completed, sunk on 4 September 1944 while running trials in Genoa.[Conway p300]
*: ex-''Carrista'', Soldati-class destroyer. Not completed.[Conway p301]
*: (ex-), Italian ). Captured at Fiume, served in Adriatic. Sunk in an air raid on Trieste 17 February 1945.[Conway p299]
*: (ex-''Spica'', Italian ''Ariete''-class torpedo boat). Enlisted into German service on the 8 September 1944, but it was fully equipped only on 23 November 1944 (although it participated in the combat duties even though it was not completed). ''TA45'' sailed to her last mission on 10 April 1945 together with ''TA40'' (''Pugnale''). Her duty was to escort and protect the tank carriers in the Velebit Channel
The Velebit Channel () is a channel in Croatia located between the lands at the foot of the Velebit mountain range and the islands of Pag, Rab, Goli Otok, Prvić and Krk. It is about long, with an average width of and up to deep.
It is ...
, at the time when the units of People's Liberation Army of Yugoslavia started to land at the island of Rab supported by British light naval forces. ''TA45'' was destroyed by the British motor torpedo boats which waited in the ambush near Cape Glavina on the isle of Krk.[Conway p304]
*: (ex-''Lira'', Italian ). Destroyed in air raid at La Spezia
La Spezia (, or ; ; , in the local ) is the capital city of the province of La Spezia and is located at the head of the Gulf of La Spezia in the southern part of the Liguria region of Italy.
La Spezia is the second-largest city in the Liguria ...
, 4 November 1944.[Conway p302]
Notes
References
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*
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*
*
External links
TA boats on German Navy.de
{{WWII German ships
Torpedo boats of the Kriegsmarine
Destroyers of the Kriegsmarine
World War II torpedo boats of Germany
Naval ships captured by Germany during World War II