Emilio Faà di Bruno

Emilio Faà di Bruno

Emilio Faà di Bruno (born March 7, 1820 in Alessandria , † July 20, 1866 near Lissa ) was a Piedmontese and Italian naval officer.

Life

Faa 'di Bruno was trained at the Naval School in Genoa and was then allowed to take part in a two-year training voyage of the frigate Giorgio Des Geneys along the coast of America .

During the first Italian War of Independence in 1848 he was in action in the Adriatic Sea , where he was involved in the bombardment of the Austrian coastal batteries near Caorle on a corvette .

During the Second Italian War of Independence , he commanded gunboats and took part in the sieges of Gaeta and Messina in 1861 .

In 1863 he made a trip to the USA with a corvette , and the following year another trip that took him to Baffin Bay , Canada . In 1865, with the frigate Castelfidardo, he forced the Bey of Tunis to respect the rights of Italian citizens living there.

On May 6, 1866 Faa 'di Bruno took command of the new ironclad Re d'Italia , with which he took part in the third Italian War of Independence shortly afterwards . From July 18, 1866, he fired at the Austrian fortifications on the island of Lissa with his ship . In the course of the naval battle of Lissa , in which on July 20, 1866 only one of three of the Italian squadrons cruising near Lissa intervened due to blatant leadership errors, he was isolated with the Re d'Italia , the Palestro and the San Martino with seven Austrian ships of the line in action. The Re d'Italia received a hit that made the ship incapable of maneuvering and making it an easy target for the Austrian Ferdinand Max , who rammed and sank her. Faa 'di Bruno and his crew went down with the Re d'Italia .

The Italian Navy later named a submarine after Faa 'di Bruno that was sunk off Scotland during World War II .