Palestro class
_crowned.svg){kind=small} Palestro class |
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 Palestro class
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| overview | |
| Ship type : |
cacciatorpedine destroyer from 1938: torpedine torpedo boat |
| Units: | 4th |
| Builder: | Fratelli Orlando & Co in Livorno |
| Keel laying : | April / May 1917 |
| 1. Launch : | March 23, 1919 Palestro |
| 1. Commissioning: | January 26, 1921 Palestro |
| Use until: |
October 19, 1944 Sinking of TA 18 ex Solferino |
| Technical specifications | |
| Displacement : | 875 ts standard 1,076 ts maximum |
| Length: | 81.9 m above sea level, 80.0 m pp. |
| Width: | 8.0 m |
| Draft : | 2.7 m |
| Drive : | 4 Thornycroft boilers 2 Zoelly turbines 18,000 hp |
| Speed : | 32 kn |
| Fuel supply: | 208 tons of oil |
| Range : | 1,970 nm at 14 kn |
| Crew : | 106 to 125 |
| Armament: | 4 × 102 mm L / 45 guns 2 × 76 mm L / 40 guns 2 × 6.5 mm Colt Browning machine guns 4 × 457 mm torpedo tubes (2 × 2) up to 39 sea mines last TA 19 1944: |
The Palestro- class was a class of four destroyers operated by the Italian Regia Marina . The ships completed in 1921 to 1923 were a further development of the Audace class ships delivered by the same shipyard in 1914 . On October 1, 1938, the four destroyers were reclassified as torpedo boats . Planned conversions with a significant reinforcement of the close-range air defense were not carried out.
During the Second World War , the boats were primarily used for escort service. Palestro and Confienza were lost in the fall of 1940. After the Armistice of Cassibile , San Martino and Solferino in the Aegean Sea were occupied by the Germans. They finally came as TA 17 and TA 18 to the 9th torpedo boat flotilla of the Kriegsmarine set up there and were lost in the Aegean Sea in 1944.
history
The four class destroyers ( Palestro , Confienza , San Martino and Solferino ) were built by Fratelli Orlando & Co in Livorno . The ships designed in 1915 were laid down in April / May 1917. Due to the shortage of materials in World War I , construction progressed very slowly. The type ship Palestro was launched on March 23, 1919 and was completed in January 1921. The sister ships followed until April 1923.
The order for four more destroyers was started from January 1920 according to a modified design. These ships formed the Curtatone class and entered service with the Italian Navy between June 1923 and June 1924.
technical description
The four destroyers of the Palestro class were a further development of the Audace type from the shipyard from 1914. Compared to this, the hull was about 4.5 m longer. The boats had a type displacement of 875 ts .
The 81.9 m long destroyers, like their two predecessors, were powered by Zoelly turbines . Four Thornycroft boilers generated steam for the two turbine sets, which acted on two shafts and provided 18,000 WPS . The stated maximum speed of 32 knots (kn) was probably only reached under test drive conditions.
With the bunker capacity of 208 t of oil, the cruising range at 1970 nautical miles was 14 knots. During the service period, both the maximum speed and the driving range fell. At the end it was still possible to reach 25 kn.
With their two funnels, these destroyers manufactured by Orlando differed externally from the majority of Italian destroyers, which had three funnels since the first Soldati class from 1907, including the 34 destroyers of the Indomito class made between 1910 and 1922 and their further developments the Pilo - , Sirtori - , La Masa - and Cantore classes . Only the costs incurred during the same period in Ansaldo, larger esploratori the Poeri - and Mirabello class also had two chimneys. From the Curtatone class, which was derived from the Palestro class, up to the beginning of the 1930s, the subsequent newbuildings for the Italian Navy were two-chimney.
Armament
The original armament consisted of four 102 mm L / 45 guns of the Type 102/45 Mod. 1917 , an Italian replica of the QF 4 inch Mk.V naval gun developed by Armstrong . Two guns were placed side by side on the forecastle in front of the bridge house; the other two stood one behind the other on the center line of the stern.
To defend against attacks from the air, two 76 mm L / 40 anti-aircraft guns of the type 76/40 Mod. 1916 RM manufactured by Ansaldo were set up in individual mounts. This gun was also an Italian variant of a gun developed by Armstrong for the Royal Navy (QF 12 pounder 12 cwt). Two 6.5 mm were on the ships machine guns of the type Colt-Browning installed.
For this purpose, the destroyers had four 457 mm torpedo tubes in two sets of twins. In addition, up to 38 sea mines could be carried.
The crew initially consisted of 106 officers and men.
Mission history
The four destroyers served from their commissioning until 1938 in various units of the Regia Marina and performed various tasks. So that served Palestro after commissioning of the Naval Academy of Livorno . Between May 3 and 5, 1921, she transported the coffin of ex-King Nicholas I of Montenegro from Antibes to Sanremo .
In April 1922, the new Solferino was assigned to the Divisione del Levante stationed in Constantinople , where it remained for over a year. The destroyer's working area was the Turkish coast on the Aegean Sea and the Dodecanese . In 1924 the destroyer was stationed on the Tyrrhenian Sea and accompanied the royal yacht Savoia several times .
The Confienza , just put into service, took part in the temporary occupation of Corfu in 1923 and was deployed on the Danube in 1925 .
The San Martino was stationed in the Red Sea for three months in 1926 .
In the 1920s, the destroyers visited ports in the eastern Mediterranean and on the coast of North Africa several times. So in May / June 1929 Palestro accompanied the esploratore Augusto Riboty and three destroyers of the Curtatone class on the second Italo Balbos mass flight from Taranto via Athens , Istanbul and Varna to Odessa (Crociera Aerea del Mediterraneo Orientale). On the return flight, the Romanian Constanta was approached instead of Varna. The escort ships also reached the stage destinations and took up security positions on the planned flight route when the flying boats approached their next destination.
In 1929, all four ships of the class formed the VII Destroyer Squadron in Taranto . Together with the VIII. Squadron formed from units of the Curtatone -class, they belonged to the 4th destroyer flotilla led by the esploratore Augusto Riboty .
1934-1935 moved the Palestro to the Red Sea, where it was used alongside the cruiser Bari , the flotilla leader Pantera , the torpedo boat Audace and some auxiliary ships. Then she moved to Cyrenaica .
Due to their many missions, the destroyers had left a lot in 1937. Since they no longer met the standard of modern destroyers, the four boats were reclassified as torpedo boats on October 1, 1938 . A planned rearmament with a significant increase in the short-range air defense did not take place until Italy entered the Second World War. However, the appearance of the ships had changed due to the extension of the forward funnel.
In June 1940, the units of the class ( Palestro , Confienza , San Martino , Solferino ) formed the 15th torpedo boat squadron in Venice .
Operations in World War
After various control and monitoring tasks in the Adriatic , the four torpedo boats moved to the southern Adriatic and were assigned to this on August 20, 1940 when the Comando Superiore Traffico Albania ( Maritrafalba ) was created. With the two oldest destroyers of the Mirabello class and nine other former destroyers (including the four boats of the Curtatone class), they secured the transfer of troops and material to Albania in preparation for the Greco-Italian War .
Already on September 22, 1940, the British submarine sank Osiris in position 41 ° 19 'North / 18 ° 34' east, about 40 nautical miles from the west Durres the Palestro , should lead the three empty trucks to Brindisi. The destroyer ran around its escort at a low speed of only 7 knots. When three torpedoes approaching the ship were recognized, the destroyer tried to evade, but was hit by a torpedo shortly after the bridge while turning. The torpedo hit in the area of the foremost boiler and an ammunition chamber and triggered a significant explosion that divided the destroyer. The bow section sank immediately, the rear section after a few minutes. 72 men died on the destroyer, the transporters were able to save 53 survivors.
On November 19, 1940, the Confienza Durres left with three empty freighters for Brindisi, where they arrived in the evening. The auxiliary cruiser Capitano A. Cecchi from Valona / Vlora arrived at the same time in front of the darkened harbor and collided with the destroyer. The auxiliary cruiser, which suffered damage to the bow, took over the crew of the severely damaged torpedo boat and tried to tow it to Brindisi. The rescue attempt was in vain: after about an hour and twenty minutes the Confienza broke and sank shortly after midnight two miles from Brindisi.
The two remaining boats were still used in escort service. The main area of operation remained the route to Albania and then to Greece, but escorts to North Africa also occurred. In 1942 both ships were re-armed. They gave up two of the 102-mm cannons and the two 76-mm guns and received six modern 20-mm anti-aircraft machine guns of the Breda type and two depth charges made in Germany.
The Solferino was stationed in the Aegean Sea from the end of August 1942 and served as an escort to supply the Italian garrisons in the Aegean Sea. When the truce between Italy and the Allies was announced, the Solferino was in Suda Bay ( Crete ) together with the Castelfidardo .
The San Martino did not come to the Aegean until August 1943. When the Italians surrendered, the torpedo boat was in Piraeus with the destroyers Francesco Crispi and Turbine and the torpedo boat Calatafimi . The Italian crews were forced by the Germans to evacuate their ships.
Further missions under the German flag
The Germans put the San Martino and Solferino in the service of the Kriegsmarine , which they used as TA 17 and TA 18 for escort security. They formed the 9th torpedo boat flotilla of the Kriegsmarine with other captured Italian units.
TA 17 was already used in November 1943 to secure the transports of the German combat group Müller , which recaptured the islands occupied by the British in the course of their Dodecanese campaign . The loot ships also served as fast troop transports and also gave artillery support to the landing troops. The first target of the combat group formed from the 22nd Infantry Division was the island of Leros . After the surrender of the Allied troops on Samos on November 22, 1943, the reconquest of the Dodecanese was complete.
In the period that followed, active escort activities began to supply the German island garrisons and to exchange the combat troops for occupation troops. The continued frequent air raids by the Allies led to a further strengthening of the anti-aircraft armament with a German 3.7 cm C / 30 anti-aircraft gun.
The Italian troops were also transferred from the islands to the mainland. As military internees , they should be used as forced labor in the German Reich. In the company of the torpedo boats TA 16 (ex Castelfidardo ), TA 19 (ex Calatafimi ) and TA 17 , the steamer Oria (2127 GRT) sank at Cape Sounion on February 12, 1944 as a result of a navigation error in very stormy weather and was lost due to stranding. More than 4000 of the 4160 embarked Italian "military internees" perished in this second attempt to reach Piraeus from Rhodes. The old torpedo boats were unable to save many of the castaways and ran on to Piraeus.
TA 17 probably received a mine hit on June 18, 1944 and was not operational again afterwards. On September 18, 1944, the torpedo boat under repair was so badly damaged in an air raid on Piraeus that it was no longer possible to repair it. On October 12, 1944, the former San Martino was probably hit again by aircraft; TA 17 sank in the port of Piraeus when the Germans withdrew.
The sister ship Solferino , initially only used by the Germans as a spare parts donor, was repaired in 1944 and put into service by the Navy on July 25, 1944 as TA 18 . From September 30 to October 3, 1944, the last larger German escort was the steamer Zar Ferdinand (1994 GRT) and the tanker Berta (1810 GRT), secured by TA 18 , two submarine hunters and two harbor protection boats to Salonika . On 2 October, the French submarine sank Curie 19 nm northwest of Skiathos , the Tsar Ferdinand , 3rd British unswerving 4 nm south Cassandra Peninsula , the Berta .
On October 19, 1944, TA 18 was on its way to Saloniki when it was discovered and shelled south of Volos by the British destroyers Termagant and Tuscan . Since no chance was seen to escape the precise fire, an attempt was made to put the damaged ship on the coast. The British destroyers continued their fire until the ship was completely destroyed at position 37 ° 45 'North / 26 ° 59' East.
units
| Surname | Keel laying | Launch | in service | Whereabouts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Palestro PT | 04/12/1917 | 03/23/1919 | 01/26/1921 | west of the September 22, 1940 Durres by the British submarine Osiris sunk |
| Solferino SL | 04/21/1917 | 04/28/1920 | October 31, 1921 | Sunk as TA 18 of the Kriegsmarine on October 19, 1944 by the British destroyers Termagant and Tuscan . |
| San Martino SM | 04/30/1917 | September 8, 1920 | 10/10/1922 | Damaged as TA 17 of the Kriegsmarine on October 12, 1944 in Piraeus finally destroyed by air raids. |
| Confienza CF | 05/10/1917 | December 18, 1920 | 04/25/1923 | Sank on November 22, 1940 after colliding with the auxiliary cruiser Capitano A. Cecchi off Brindisi. |
literature
- Harald Fock : Z-before! International development and war missions of destroyers and torpedo boats , Volumes 1 and 2, Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, Hamburg 2001,
- Gardiner, R. Chesnau, R .: Conways All the Worlds Fighting Ships 1922-1946, 2008, ISBN 0-85177-146-7 .
- MJWhitley: Destroyer in World War II . Motorbuch Verlag, 1995, ISBN 3-613-01426-2
Web links
- PALESTRO destroyers (1921-1923) on navypedia.org (accessed January 11, 2018)
- TA17 torpedo boats (1921–1922 / 1943-1944) on navypedia.org (accessed January 11, 2018)
- Jürgen Rohwer , Gerhard Hümmelchen : Chronicle of the Naval War 1939–1945 , Ed. Library for Contemporary History / Württemberg State Library, Stuttgart 2007 to 2017 (accessed January 10, 2018)
- Urs Heßling: 9th torpedo boat flotilla on historisches-marinearchiv.de (accessed January 10, 2018)
Footnotes
- ↑ La Crociera Aerea del Mediterraneo Orientale
- ^ Rohwer: Sea War , September 22-28, 1940 Mediterranean Sea
- ↑ Cecchi , motor ship built in Sweden, 2321 GRT, delivered as a banana freighter in 1934
- ^ Rohwer: Sea War , 8-11 September 1943 Italy / Mediterranean.
- ^ Rohwer: Sea War , 5. – 11. and November 10–24, 1943 Aegean Sea.
- ↑ Rohwer: naval warfare , 1.2.-29.2.1944 Mediterranean / Aegean Sea.
- ^ Rohwer: Sea War , September 12-25, 1944 Mediterranean / Greece.
- ^ MJ Whitley: Destroyers in World War II , p. 50