|
|
|
|
R.Smg. MARCONI |
|
|
| The MARCONI was the first of a series of 6 boats and which bears its name (Marconi Class). Of this class, 5 boats were sunk and one captured. The boat was laid down at the C.R.D.A. shipyard of Monfalcone on September 19th, 1938, launched on July 30th of the following year, and delivered to the Navy on February 2nd, 1940. After a brief period of training and testing, the boat was assigned to the 22nd Squadron, 2nd Submarine Group with its base in Naples. |
|
The MARCONI still on the slip just before its launch.
|
Operational Life |
1940 |
|
The first war patrol of the submarine MARCELLO was particularly
successful. In July 1940, a few weeks after Italy’s declaration of war,
the Italian Submarine Command organized a large and continuous patrol line
east of the Strait of Gibraltar. The area in question was patrolled by a
total of 11 boats divided into 3 groups. The MARCELLO, along with the Emo,
Dandolo and Barbarigo, was assigned to the first group. This patrol
started on July 1st and lasted for almost two weeks. The Emo and MARCONI
were assigned to the westernmost area. The Emo patrolled south of the
meridian of Alboran (about halfway between the Moroccan and Spanish
coast), while the MARCONI was assigned north of this meridian and closer
to the Spanish coast. The MARCONI, under the command of Lieutenant Commander Giulio Chialaberto, was already in position when, the evening of July 2, it sighted in position 36° 25’N, 03° 48’W a group of six destroyers. In the darkness of the night (it was about 30 minutes to midnight), the captain launched a single torpedo at about 1,000 meters from the nearest target. The weapon failed right away, assuming the wrong course, so a second weapon was also expended. The presence of such a large formation forced the MARCONI to seeking refuge in the depths of the sea, thus the results of the attack could not be immediately ascertained. Later reports would confirm that as a result of this action, H.M.S. Vortigen (D37) was hit and sustained damage, but was able to get back to base. H.M.S. Vortigen, a British destroyer of the V Class built in 1916, would eventually be lost on May 15th, 1942. |
|
|
|
Toward the end of the patrol, on July 11th (possibly
earlier), the MARCONI sighted another destroyer. After having made
contact around 03:00, the captain moved the boat into a favorable attack
position and launched a single torpedo. The weapon hit the British
destroyer H.M.S. Escort which, along with H.M.S. Forester (H66),
was returning to Gibraltar following operation “MA 5”. The attack took
place in position 36° 20’N, 03° 40’W and, following the attack, the
MARCONI had to avoid an attempted ramming by H.M.S. Forester. H.M.S.
Escort was a destroyer of the E class built in 1933 and following the
attack that had destroyed the forward boiler room, there was a failed
attempt to tow it back to port. |
|
|
Upon returning to Naples, the MARCONI was one of the earlier boats
selected for service in the Atlantic. At the end of August, MARCICOSOM,
the Italian submarine command, issued the necessary orders to transfer
another group of submarines to the Atlantic. This group was to cross the
treacherous Strait of Gibraltar during the new moon around September 2nd.
The group included the MARCONI, Emo, Faà di Bruno, Giuliani, Baracca,
Torelli, Tarantini, Finzi and Bagnolini. |
|
|
|
The MARCONI, still under the command of Lieutenant Commander Giulio
Chialamberto, left Naples on September 6th and reached the approach to the
strait on the 11th. Having noticed the presence of British patrol units,
the captain decided to cross the narrow and perilous strait underwater,
eventually reaching the Atlantic side without any problems. Once in the
Atlantic, the MARCONI assumed the assigned patrol position off Cape
Finesterre just north of the position assigned to the Finzi, a boat under
the command of Commander Alberto Dominici. The Marconi remained in the
area from the 15th to the 28th. On the 19th, Captain Chialamberto sighted
a small ship and proceeded to sink it. Unfortunately, it was the Spanish
trawler Alm. Jose de Carranza of 330 tons, a neutral vessel used
for commercial fishing. In due course, the first Atlantic mission of the
MARCONI ended with its arrival in Bordeaux on September 29th. The
permanence in Bordeaux was not long; in early October Betasom was asked by
B.d.U. to organize two attack groups to join German forces in the north
Atlantic. The MARCONI was assigned to the Bagnolini Group along with the
Bagnolini itself, the Baracca, and the Finzi. The MARCONI left base on
October 27th, the last of the group. Once at sea, the boat received a
discovery signal in the afternoon of December 4th from the Malaspina.
Despite the immediate search, the boat failed to locate the convoy
previously signaled and continued on to the assigned area. Between the 6th
and 8th of November, the MARCONI was in the patrol area spanning from 20°
W to 26° W and from 55°20’N to 56°20’ N. On the 8th, the radioman aboard
the submarine intercepted a radio message from the British cargo ship
Cornish City of 4,952 tons which had claimed having heard a violent
explosion. The MARCONI sighted the merchant ship and immediately after an
escort unit forced it to seek refuge into the depths. The escort unit went
on with the usual lengthy hunt dropping 14 depth charges, but missing the
target because the captain had been very ingenious in taking the boat down
to 125 meters. At that time, British escort units did not know that Axis
boats could reach such depths. Eventually, the unit in question noticed
fuel, oil, and wreckage bubbling to the surface and, assuming a kill, gave
up the hunt. |
|
|
|
On the 9th, having received a signal with the necessary instructions, the
MARCONI moved on toward a position indicated by the Otaria as one of a
naval formation including an aircraft carrier and a few destroyers.
Instead of the formation, the MARCONI found a straggling merchant ship
already damaged by a previous attack by a FW 200 of KG40 and ablaze. Past
sunset, after a first failed attack, the MARCONI placed a torpedo into the
side of the Swedish ship Vingaland of 2,734 tons (some sources give
the displacement at only 2,720 tons). Original Italian documentation
assumed that this ship was able to reach port, but this assumption, like
many others, was mistaken. This Swedish ship was built in 1935 by the
shipyard Eriksberg, MekaniskeVerkstads of Gothenburg and was part of
convoy HX.84 from Halifax. The sinking took place in position 55°41’N,
18°24’W with a total of six casualties and 19 crewmembers later rescued.
A few days later, in the early morning of November 14th, the MARCONI sighted another merchant ship. It could have been the opportunity for another kill, but the boat had lost the use of the attack periscope since the beginning of the mission and the use of the second periscope brought part of the turret out of the water more than once. At about 2500 meters, a single torpedo was launched but failed the target and then the captain decided to give up the chase since the ship was faster than his boat. Two days later, and precisely on the 16th, the MARCONI received another signal but the severe weather conditions did not allow it to make much progress toward a fairly large convoy. On the 18th, another signal brought the boat on another chase, but there was no contact made and soon after the submarine had to return to base, reaching Bordeaux on November 28th. |
|
|
After the usual period for refitting, the MARCONI was again sent
to sea, this time off Oporto, Portugal. The boat left Bordeaux on January
16th, reaching the assigned area around the 21st. Here, the MARCONI waited
off the estuary of the River Tago for a convoy of about 20 ships sailing
up from Gibraltar and directed to England. On the 10th, aboard the
submarine a considerable trail left by leaking fuel was detected. The
seriousness of the problem suggested abandoning the search for the convoy,
but the morning of the same day Captain Chialaberto attacked, while
submerged, a merchant ship without identifying it and failing to sink it.
On the 12th, the boat left the patrol area returning to Bordeaux on the
17th of February. |
1941 |
|
After a long period of refitting, in May the MARCONI was assigned to a
screen which included the Argo, Mocenigo, Veniero, Brin, Velella and Emo
running north to south along 12°00’N. During the refitting preceding this
mission, Lieutenant Commander Chialamberto had been transferred to the
submarine Bagnolini and had been replaced by Lieutenant Mario Paolo
Pollina. The precise date of the MARCONI’s departure from Bordeaux is not
known, but took place between the19th and the 29th of May. |
|
|
|
On the 30th, at 08:00, the crew sighted the British tanker Cairndale
and proceeded to sink it with two launches of two torpedoes each. The
attack took place in position 35°20’N, 8°45’W just west of the Strait of
Gibraltar (170 miles from Cape Trafalgar). The position of the sinking was
given by the British authorities in 35°19’N, 8°33’W with the reported loss
of four crewmembers. The Cairndale was a motor tanker (oiler) of the Royal
Fleet Auxiliary and had been laid down in 1938 as the Erato. Built in 1939
by the Harland & Wolff of Belfast, it had a displacement of 8,129 tons.
The reaction of the escort was immediate, but despite the launch of
numerous depth charges, the boat lived to tell the story. The following
day, Captain Pollina sank the Portuguese steam trawler Exportador I
(given by some authors as Equador Primero) of 318 tons with the deck gun.
It is not known why a neutral ship would become the target of the
submarine, but we could assume that it was providing some service to the
British forces. At 23:50 on the night of June5th, the MARCONI sighted a convoy in position 35°05’, 11°45W. Along with the Velella, the MARCONI began approaching the convoy hoping to be able to break through the columns, but the intervention of one of the escorts forced it to withdraw. The attack was resumed in the early hours of the 6th, and at 04:22 the MARCONI launched two torpedoes against a large tanker described as type “Daghestan”. This was a tanker built in 1921 by the Short Bros. Ltd of Sunderland, displacing 5,842 tons and sunk by U 57 in 1940. According to the report presented by the MARCONI, one more ship was also damaged. |
|
|
|
Two other torpedoes hit the British freighter Baron Lovat of 3,395
tons, sinking it, and one of the last weapons launched hit the Swedish
cargo Taberg. The first vessel was built by Ayrshire Dockyard of
Irvine in 1926 and belonged to the Hogarth Shipping Co. of Glasgow. The
position of the sinking was given as 35°30N, 11°30’W and all 35
crewmembers were rescued. The Baron Lovat was carrying 3,245 tons of coke.
Of the Taberg we have very limited information if only that it displaced
1,392 tons and was in ballast and thay only 6 out of the 22 crewmembers
were later saved by a British ship. The
Baron Lovat and Taberg were part of convoy OG.63 from Liverpool to
Gibraltar. The convoy had left Great Britain on May 25th with a total of
39 ships, later arriving in Gibraltar on June 7th after having lost 3
vessels. The British reports would indicate that in addition to the two
ships sunk by the MARCONI, a third one (Glen Head), was sunk by an
aircraft. During this operation, both the Velella and Emo conducted
similar attacks but failed to score any success. Immediately
after the audacious attack, the boat became the object of the attentions
of the escort unit, and after the first few cannon shots, the captain took
the boat underwater where it remained until the afternoon. The same night,
having exhausted all the torpedoes, the MARCONI began the journey back to
base.
|
|
|
Meantime, it had been ascertained that a British convoy (HG.70 from
Gibraltar to Great Britain) was on the move and all submarines in the
area, both German and Italian, were sent on the hunt. On the 14th, the
MARCONI sighted the merchant ship Sud, a Yugoslavian freighter of
2,598 tons. Having failed the attack with the torpedo, the MARCONI
proceeded to finish the ship with the deck gun. Once the ship hit by many
rounds came to a halt, the captain waited for the enemy crewmembers to
abandon ship. Meantime, a German submarine, U 126 commanded by
Korvettenkapitän Ernst Bauer intervened, firing a few rounds into the hull
of the sinking ship and claiming it as his own (he ended the war with a
record of 119.110 tons sunk). All 33 crewmembers were later saved. The
position of the sinking is given as 41°00’N, 17°41’W. For the record, the
Sud belonged to the Oceania Brodarsko Ackionarsko Drustvo of Susak and was
built in 1901 by Roger & Co. of Glasgow. Roger Jordan gives the
displacement as only 2,520 tons. After the attack, the MARCONI continued
chasing the convoy until the 17th and then began the return voyage to base
reaching Bordeaux on August 29th. Immediately after, Lieutenant Pollina
was disembarked due to health reasons and replaced by Lieutenant Commander
Livio Piomarta who had already served aboard the submarine Ferraris. |
|
| On October 5th, the MARCONI was again at sea and directed to Gibraltar to intercept a convoy along with the Ferraris, Archimede, and Barbarigo. On October 22nd, the MARCONI was located 720 miles WNW of the strait. On the 25th, the Ferraris was scuttled after an aerial bombing (Catalina A of the 202 R.A.F. Squadron) and later attacked and sunk by the British destroyer H.M.S. Lamerton. On the 26th, the Ferraris made contact with the convoy. On the 28th, the MARCONI sighted many flares and, at 23:30, following a request from Betasom, it communicated its position (42°55’N, 21°55W). A German submarine, also in the area, indicated that at that point the MARCONI was about 30 miles south of the convoy. The same day, U-432 sank the British cargo Ulea (part of HG.75 including 17 ships, 4 of which were lost) at 05:09 in position 41°17N, 21°40W. Assuming that the positions given are accurate, the MARCONI was almost 100 miles from the position where the Ulea was lost. Furthermore, the MARCONI was north, not south of the convoy. In any event, this was the last time the whereabouts of the MARCONI were known. The submarine failed to return to base and was declared lost west of Gibraltar between October 28th and December 4th (the last date being the maximum endurance at sea). |
Additional notes |
|
Erminio Bagnasco and Achille Rastelli wrote in "Sommergibili
in Guerra": "[the Marconi] would be lost under the command of Liutenant
Commander Livio Piomarta, probably sunk by mistake by the German submarine
U.67 on October 28th, 1941 during an attack against a convoy off
Portugal." But suggestion that the submarine Marconi was sunk by
the German U-boat U67 in 1941 has proved incorrect as the German boat was
not at sea at the time of the Marconi’s disappearance |
 |
||
|
|
||
| © 1996-2007 REGIAMARINA (TM) - Terms and Conditions | ||
