Towards the end of 1942, Germany and Italy felt the necessity of getting essential and rare goods from the Far East that were no longer available in Europe at the time. Amongst these materials were rubber, nickel, copper, cobalt, tin, wolfram, quinine, vegetable fiber and varnish. Moreover, these contacts would have allowed for the exchange of mail, news, weapons, blueprints of weaponry systems and agents with Japan. These reasons induced both the Regia Marina and the Kriegsmarine to transform a few dozen attack submarines into transport ones.

Micca, a minelayer

After the United States entered the war in December 1941, the dispatching of Italian and German cargo ships to Japan, the so called ‘blockade runners’, became much more dangerous due to increased naval and aerial surveillance. It is for this specific reason that, beginning in 1942, both Germans and Italians began planning a well-organized connection with the Far East, utilizing much safer underwater vessels.

The modification of these ocean going vessels or the construction of new ones was reminiscent of World War I and the building of the cargo submarines DEUTSCHLAND and BREMEN, to break the enemy’s blockade and conduct business with the United States. In 1916, taking advantage of American neutrality, DEUTSCHLAND succeeded in completing the long journey from Kiel to Baltimore. During the long mission, the German unit transported paint and dies, mail and precious stones and returning with a discrete load of silver, zinc, nickel and copper.

Before deciding to utilize the underwater weapons to maintain contact with Japan and its new Indonesian possessions recently taken from the Dutch between January and March 1942, Italy had already successfully employed various submarine units to supply her troops in North Africa. Due to the dangerous presence of British airplanes and Malta-bases ships between the Italian ports and the Libyan coast, Supermarina decided to utilize submarines since very early on in the conflict. Without the necessary time to modify the units and with the intention of maintaining their original characteristics so that they could easily be redeployed offensively, the Italian Navy simply removed the torpedoes replacing them with tons of urgent material destined for the North African Front.

On 18 June 1940, only eight days after Italy’s entry into the war, the submarine ZOEA sailed from Naples to Tobruk with an urgent load of 60 tons of ammunition for the Army, mostly 20, 37 and 47mm projectiles. A similar mission was completed on 24 June by the submarine BRAGADIN which, after having left the Parthenopean port, transported over 30 tons of supplies to Tobruk.

Throughout the conflict, various Italian submarines (TOTI, SANTAROSA and ATROPO) were utilized along this and other routes. For example, starting in March 1941, the minelayer MICCA (photo) was frequently utilized to transport fuel, spare parts and ammunition not only to Libya but also to the Italian islands in the Aegean, especially Rhodes and Leros. It should be noted that although these missions provided some limited relief to the Italian forces in Libya and the Aegean, it also left the Supermarine without the assistance of these units against the British military and commercial traffic in the Mediterranean.

EDITOR NOTE – of the Italian cargo submarines mentioned above, SANTAROSA was sunk 19 January 1943 by HM MTB-260, MICCA was sunk 29 July 1943 by HM submarine TROOPER, TOTI was stricken in 1943 and ATROPO lived out the war.

As it is well known, Italy’s shortage of cargo ships and tankers forced the Regia Marina’s command into even greater sacrifices, such as the utilization of destroyers and cruisers as transport ships. Starting in 1941, various units of this kind with their decks loaded with extremely dangerous barrels of fuel and ammunition boxes attempted to reach Libyan ports, often with horrendous losses.

Cargo Subs

But let us go back to the cargo submarines. Toward the end of 1942, Italy started a plan for the transformation of submarines to be utilized as transport for journeys to the Far East. Initially ten subs based in Bordeaux (the 12th U-Bootflottille) were selected, but eventually only seven began the necessary internal and external transformations. These were TAZZOLI, FINZI, TORELLI, GIULIANI, BAGNOLIN, BARBARIGO and CAPPELLINI.

CAPPELLINI in port

Before the Italian armistice on 8 Sept. 1943, only CAPPELINNI, TORELLI and GIULIANI had been able to leave port and, after a long and dangerous journey, reach the distant Indonesian ports where they were captured by the Japanese just before their return to Bordeaux.

In the fall of 1942, Supermarina ordered from the Tosi Shipyard in Taranto, C.R.D.A. of Monfalcone and the O.T.O. of La Spezia a group of ten large new submarines specifically designed for the transport missions and belonging to the Class “R”. Of this group, the ROMULO and REMO were eventually completed before the armistice. ROMULO and REMO built by Tosi, displaced 2,210 tons surfaced and 2,606 submerged.

EDITOR NOTE – if you remember your Roman mythology, Romulus and Remus were the twins that were raised by a she-wolf in the forest and eventually grew to manhood. They decided to build a city. Romulus wanted his in one location, Remus in another. The gods favored Romulus and the city was begun in his chosen place. When his twin brother Remus jumped over the short wall surrounding the infant city, Romulus hit him with a shovel and killed him, saying, “This is what will happen to all enemies of Rome!”

They were 86.5 meters long. These units were decisively innovative for both their dimensions and the allocation of internal space. The hull included two large holds, one fore and one aft, for a total of 610 cubic meters and capable of holding about 600 tons of cargo. The propulsion system was two 2,600 hp Tosi diesels and two 900 hp Marelli electric motors. The unit was capable of reaching 13 knots surfaced and 9 knots submerged.

The “R” Class boat had a range of 12,000 miles at 9 knots surfaced and 110 miles at 3˝ knots submerged. ROMULO and REMO had three retractable 20mm anti aircraft guns and had four collapsible cranes on the main deck for cargo handling. For the units following these first two, the engineers had planned the installation of two 450mm torpedo tubes forward, which were smaller than the normal 21 inch torpedoes used in the war. The crews of these boats consisted of 7 officers and 56 petty officers and sailors.

In addition to ROMULO and REMO, the only other “R” Class boat completed before the Italian armistice was R12, which did not even receive a name. Even though R12 was not able to be a part of the war effort, she was used until the 1970’s in the port of Ancona as a floating oil fuel depot under the denomination GR.523.

ROMOLO in port

The operational life of these two large Italian transport submarines was short and very sad. On 15 July 1943, REMO departed Taranto bound for Naples. She was sunk off Punta Alice by the Royal Navy submarine HMS UNITED. The commander, TV Salvatore Vassallo and all but four of the crew were lost.

ROMULO had a similar fate. On 18 July 1943, three days after her departure from her base at Taranto bound for Naples, a Royal Air Force bomber of the 221st Group found the boat and bombed her heavily. Two hours later, unable to keep ROMULO afloat, the Skipper TV Alberto Crepas and the entire crew rode the boat down. There were no survivors.