Name Comandante Cappellini Renamed Aquilla III, May 1943 Acquired September 1943 Length 73 m | Commissioned 23 September 1939 Name UIT-24 Launched 14 May 1939 | |
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Fate Captured by Japan, 10 September 1943, and handed over to Germany | ||
Comandante Cappellini or Cappellini was a World War II Italian Marcello-class submarine built for the Italian Royal Navy (Italian: Regia Marina). After Italy's surrender, the submarine was captured by the Japanese and handed over to Germany as UIT-24. Following the capitulation of Germany, the Japanese integrated the boat into their fleet as I-503. Following the end of the war, the United States scuttled the submarine in 1946.
Contents
Service history
Operating under the BETASOM command, Comandante Cappellini made war patrols in the Atlantic Ocean sinking or damaging 31,000 tons of enemy shipping. She participated in the rescue of the survivors of the Laconia in September 1942. Was later converted to the transport of strategic materials to and from Japan. After Italy's capitulation in 1943, the submarine was captured by the Imperial Japanese Navy and handed over to Germany at Sabang on 10 September 1943. Commissioned into the Kriegsmarine as foreign U-boat UIT-24 and assigned to 12th U-boat Flotilla with a mixed Italian and German crew. She remained in the Pacific despite failed attempts to return to the 12th flotilla base at Bordeaux, France.
At Germany's surrender in May 1945, the submarine was taken over and commissioned into the Imperial Japanese Navy as I-503 (its crew now a mixture of Italians, Germans, and Japanese) and shuttled between ports as a transport submarine. At Japan's surrender in August 1945, she was seized by the United States Navy, which scuttled her off Kobe on 16 April 1946.
In fiction
Cappellini is mentioned (and seen briefly in some scenes) in the 2011 TV movie The Sinking of the Laconia.