The Conte di Cavour was an Italian class battleship of the same name, serving in the Royal Navy before and during World War II. It was named in honor of the statesman Camillo Benso Conte di Cavour.
Built the Arsenal of La Spezia, its hull was set in 1910, and the unit was launched in 1911. The ship’s motto, written by D’Annunzio, was “No one second.”
Features
The ship had a displacement at full load of over 25000 tons. It reached a top speed of 21 knots thanks to a power plant consisting of twenty Blechhynden boilers, of which eight and twelve combustion Oil combustion mixed with coal and fuel oil, which they fed three groups independent of turbines that were acting on four propellers, developing 31,000 HP having an overall power, with an autonomy of 4,800 miles at a speed of 10 knots.
The main armament consisted of thirteen guns 305/46mm divided into five towers, three twin and two triple. The secondary armament was made of 18 guns 120/50mm and 22 guns 76/50mm, while the torpedo armament consisted of three 450mm torpedo tubes, each of which had three torpedoes.
World War I and World War I
Set up the imminence of World War I and received the flag of fighting on April 6, 1915, the ship was assigned to the base of Taranto.
The city of Turin donated the bonnet and symbol of battle, and the delivery took place in La Spezia in the presence of the Duke of Genoa.
The hood of the flag had a bas-relief with the face of Cavour and rested on a base adorned with alabaster and bronze gilt frames. Currently, the bonnet and the Flag are preserved in the Sacrario of the Flags of Vittoriano in Rome.
On 24 May 1915, at the outbreak of war against the Austro-Hungarian Empire, it became the flagship of Vice-Admiral Luigi Amedeo of Savoy. During the war, they did not take part in active missions due to the passive policy adopted by the Italian and Austrian Marines; in fact, they spent 966 hours in practice and only 40 hours in three acts of war bloodless.
After the war, the Count of Cavour took part in cruise propaganda in North America, reaching the ports of Gibraltar, Ponta Delgada, Faial, Halifax, Boston, Newport, Tompkinsville, New York, Philadelphia, Annapolis, and Hampton Roads.
In the summer of 1922, King Vittorio Emanuele III of Savoy would set sail to visit the Italian cities released on the Adriatic Sea.
In the late summer of 1923, on the occasion of the Crisis of Corfu, along with twin Giulio Caesar and Duilio, August 29th, it attacked the Greek island of Corfu as retaliation for the killing of representatives Italians to Giannina Avventuo August 27, when the Italian military mission, headed by General Tellini and mandated by the Conference of Ambassadors of the definition of the greek-albanian border, it had been murdered in an ambush. The head of Mussolini’s Italian government demanded that the Greek fleet, in a special ceremony, render honors to the Italian flag.
The Greek government rejected the proposal, and Mussolini replied by sending a naval division composed of the battleships Cavour, Caesar, Doria, and Duilio to occupy Corfu. After the Italian ships bombed on August 29 the city’s old fort, the Greek government had to accept the imposition of the Italian flag that honors the Italian naval squadron received at Phaleron, a port near Athens. The units did return to Taranto at the end of September.
In 1924, along with Dante Alighieri and Duilio, they conducted a cruise in Spanish waters; during the visit of the King of Spain and Italy in April 1925, Benito Mussolini used it to travel to Tripoli.
During the twenties, the unit underwent several changes with modernization works by replacing the anti-aircraft armament of six guns 76/50mm and 76/40mm with as many pieces of modern design. It also replaced the front shaft with a shaft quadrupole tripod to support a central telemetric highest, which modified the profile.
In 1925, the Count of Cavour, as well as Julius Caesar, was aboard a seaplane reconnaissance M.18, which was placed on the ceiling of the central tower in a special swivel seat to be able to steer the aircraft according to the wind direction. The plane was put into the sea and hoisted on board by means of a derrick. In 1926, the launch of the seaplane was also installed.
On 12 May 1928, the units came mail in disarmament in Taranto waiting to be radiata you and initiated successively to the demolition.
In the early thirties, its modernization was decided five years after disarmament; in October 1933, the ship was transferred to the San Marco Shipyard in Trieste to be subjected to radical modernization works.
Reconstruction
The reconstruction, which took place between 1933 and 1937 in Trieste in the Adriatic Shipyards Reunited, ended up changing the profile of the ship, leaving intact only 40% of the original structure, with extensive modifications to the hull, whose length was increased by 10, 3m by the superposition of a new bow to the old.
The ship was equipped with new armored decks, and two chimneys were found to be lower and shorter. The tower, wholly rebuilt, cone-shaped had not very high at the top of the dashboard the range finders for the calculation of the distance of the targets and the equipment for the direction of roll of the primary gauges.
The main armament in reconstruction work saw the elimination of the tower amidships and the ri-piping of other buildings from 305/46mm to 320mm/44, for a total of 10 cannons in two turrets and two twin towers.
The secondary armament was totally modified, disembarking all old cannons, and after the rebuilding, was constituted by 12 guns by 120/50mm, in 6 turrets binate, arranged three per side.
The main anti-aircraft armament consisted of eight 8-100/47mm turrets, 2 on each side of the ship. Completed the 16 anti-aircraft weapons guns 37/54mm and 12 20/65mm while the launchers were removed.
Exciting was the underwater protection, called absorber cylinder model “Pugliese” from the name of the engineer and General Umberto Pugliese, who was the designer of this system.
New engines were installed with a power of 93,000 hp, making it possible to reach a speed of 28 knots.
The total restructuring made it a ship of a good standard, although with limited anti-aircraft defenses and antisottomarine.
Return to Service
At the end of the work, the Conte di Cavour went into service on 1 June 1937 and reached its base in Taranto.
The ship took part, along with all central units of the team, in the naval review held in Naples on May 5, 1938, during which it housed King Victor Emmanuel III, Hitler, and Mussolini.
In April 1939, the Count of Cavour took part in the occupation of Albania. On this occasion the Royal Navy lined up in front of the Albanian coast a naval squadron under Admiral Arturo Riccardi, with the sign of the Count of Cavour, Cavour made from two, four heavy cruisers Zara, by the light cruisers Abruzzi, Garibaldi, and Bande Nere, 13 destroyers, 14 torpedo boats and several ferries on which were embarked a total of about 11,300 men, 130 tanks and materials of various kinds.
Despite the massive deployment of forces, the action of the Italian ships, against the timid attempts reaction from the Albanian side, merely to shoot some prejudice in Durres and Saranda. The Italian forces met little resistance, and quickly, throughout Albania was under Italian control, King Zog went into exile.
The occupation of Albania, the Adriatic, which was placed under the exclusive control of Italians, with the possibility of closing the access permanently, from the political point of view, responded to the German occupation of the Sudetenland, anticipating that in the first period of the Second World War was the so-called “parallel war” while intended to make it clear to the rest of Europe, and especially to France, that the Balkans were within the exclusive sphere of influence of Italy.
World War II
Unity, June 10, 1940, at the outbreak of World War II, was framed in the Second Division V battleships as part of the First Fleet base at Taranto in the role of ship’s Division with the sign of Admiral Brivonesi, while to the battleship sister ship, Giulio Cesare was assigned the role of flagship of the fleet with teaches of Admiral Inigo Campioni.
On July 9, 1940, under the command of Captain Ernesto Ciurlo, it participated in the first clash between the Navy and the Royal Italian Navy, the Battle of Punta Stilo.
On 30 August, most units of the First Team took part in actions against the British attempt to supply Malta by reaching a convoy from Alexandria called Operation Hats by the British. The Fleet Italian, which he saw for the first time the use of two new battleships, Littorio class, but was unable to come in contact with the enemy, partly because of a violent storm that forced him to return to the Italian ships, the destroyers could not withstand the sea.
The night of Taranto
In the night between 11 and 12 November 1940, the ship was severely damaged by a torpedo launched from a British Swordfish torpedo bomber, started from the British aircraft carrier Illustrious, remaining semiaffondata seabed.
The “Conte di Cavour” was hit by one torpedo in the hull ammunition depot not far from the bow. Still, because of not excellent structural strength, the left side was ripped open with a gap of 12×8 meters, causing the departure of much water, resulting in flooding across the bow to avoid sinking in deep water was brought into shallow waters where it settled on the seabed with the water that submerged the bridge deck. The explosion caused the death of 17 components of the crew.
The English attack pointed out the deficiencies of the works of modernization, such as poor separation of compartments and the insufficiency of the defense antiaircraft weapons.
On the same night, it went down in history as the night of Taranto, the British torpedo bombers, in three waves of attacks, also damaged the destroyer Libeccio and Pessagno, the battleships Littorio and Caio Duilio, and the cruiser Trento. The budget of the English was 85 deaths, including 55 civilians and wounded more than 581 warships were knocked out; several were damaged cargo, and fuel depots were bombed.
Refloated on 22 December, the armament was removed, and the central tower of the telemetry was sent into the basin. In late 1941, it was transferred to the San Marco shipyard in Trieste to complete repairs and perform modernization work with particular emphasis on air defense, which was expected to upgrade further.
The expected anti-aircraft armament was to be configured in twelve guns 135/45mm in six plants combined, twelve guns each by 65/64mm, twenty-three guns 20/65mm, in three complexes, and ten individuals were provided mounts plus a new direction of the shot and the installation of a radar.
The Count of Cavour, however, never returned to active duty, as to the need to build the Royal Navy escort units as torpedo boats and destroyers, at that moment deemed most advantageous to the war effort, the repairs were slowed, and the proclamation Armistice of 8 September 1943 had not yet been completed.
In the five months of the war, the Conte of Cavour had a path of 5583 miles for over 297 hours of motorbikes and consumed 4801 tons of naphtha.
Armistice
Following the events of the truce, not being able to take the ship into the sea on September 10, the crew was landed, and the day after, the battleship was captured by the Germans who had occupied Trieste, which came as part Adriatisches Küstenland and taken control of the shipyards.
The now former German allies lost interest, however, in completing the work, limited only to moving the ship from the wharf construction to be let free for other work.
On 20 February 1945, during an Allied bombing of Trieste, the Conte di Cavour was repeatedly targeted by a dropping of bombs; two of them were hit.
Despite the damage was not very severe, due to the disconnection of some metal sheets of the hull, it was opened, which caused the lowering of the free edge of the side up to the portholes and hatches, which were left open.
The fact that portholes and hatches were left open was due to an increased inflow of water into the ship, causing the heel of the hull to be overturned by turning the cannons, the tower, and the tree, which went on to plant mud in the shallows with the hull in sight.
The recovery and demolition
After the war, Count Cavour was permanently disbarred on Feb. 27, 1947, and subsequently initiated recovery operations and demolition of the wreck.
Recovery operations, very complex, began on 8 December 1950. Given the conditions of the seabed relatively low, it was estimated that after floating the wreck as it was made with the keel up, straightening it was not advisable as it did in Taranto in 1919 with the wreckage of the twin Leonardo da Vinci.
It was decided to pump water by means of compressed air inside the wreck, lowering the water level inside the purpose of allegerirlo and returning it to the surface, but it resurfaced after the wreck superstructure continued to touch the seabed preventing any movement; it was decided to cut them and leave them, at least for the moment, the scene of the sinking.
After cutting the main towers, the wreck was about 3000 tons lighter than a little freed from the power of the sea floor cut the remaining superstructure, which remained under the mud in the depths of the valley of Muggia.
The recovery work ended on March 29, 1952, and after being put afloat the wreck was towed to be scrapped later.
Currently, the Navy is serving as an aircraft carrier Cavour, delivered March 27, 2008, and after receiving the battle flag in Civitavecchia June 10, 2009, during a ceremony that was attended by the President of the Republic Giorgio Napolitano, became fully operational since summer 2009.