Changing tides

The Luigi Torelli was one of only two ships to serve all the Axis powers - Italy, Nazi Germany, and the Japanese Empire - the other being another Italian sub, the Comandante Cappellini.

The two Italian ships' repeated change of operators came due to the gradual strangling of the Axis by the Allied nations. Their histories link to the often-forgot German & Italian involvement in the war in the Pacific, and the difficulty of easily sticking to notions of loyalty - to what, or whom - that can often be easily lost in re-tellings of the Second World War.

The Torelli and Cappellini had both served the Italian Navy's main area of operations, the Mediterranean, and supported Nazi German operations in the North Sea and the Atlantic, both had been posted to the Far East before 1943, as part of a much larger group of German U-boats operating out of Penang called the Monsun Group. After the surrender of Italy to the Allies on 8th September 1943, Japan interned all Italians who refused to swear allegiance to Mussolini's rump-state the Italian Social Republic (often called the Republic of Salo) which was set up on 23rd September 1943.

This led to interesting but minor military actions in the Chinese cites of of Beijing, where Italy maintained a radio station, and Tientsin, where a small "Concession" of Italian territory existed.

[Picture: Italian Lancia 1ZM armoured cars in the Italian concession in Tientsin before World War Two.]

The radio station garrison of about 150 infantrymen resisted an attempt by 1000 Japanese soldiers and 15 tanks to occupy the area for 24 hours on 10 September 1943. The Concession in Tientsin had 600 men, 4 armoured cars and 4 anti-tank artillery pieces, but also a large number of Italian civilians; the Japanese approached with 6000 Japanese troops, supported by an air force bomber squadron. A brief artillery bombardment by Japanese forces convinced the Italian commander to surrender the Concession.

[Picture: The Italian Concession in Tientisin; the purple area to the south-west is the Japanese concession - Japanese artillery conducted their brief exemplary barrage of the Italian sector from here.]

Many of the soldiers from these garrisons were taken into Japanese captivity after they refused to pledge loyalty to the Italian Social Republic, and were dispersed in camps across China, Korea, and Japan alongside soldiers from the Allied nations, and suffered alongside them until liberation in 1945.

[Picture: Italian troops in Tientsin, at some point between 1936-1943.]

Sailors from the Torellia, Cappellini, and a further submarine, the Giuliani (which does not seem to have been kept in service by anyone after 1943) were also divided into those remaining loyal to Mussolini and those not - but not before the majority of the crew of the Cappellini attempted, on 9 September 1943 (the day of Italian surrender) to flee Sabang (near Sumatra) and return to Italy, which included a tense standoff where the Italian crew threatened to blow up the submarine if Japanese forces attempted to board.

The Torelli and Cappellini were both handed by Japan to Nazi Germany, with both submarines now having a mix of Italians who swore loyalty to Mussolini, and Germans. Torrelli was re-designated U.IT.25 by the German Kriegsmarine, with Cappellini as U.IT.24. It seems that both submarines operated as supply ships in the waters around Japan, rather than going on longer ship-hunting voyages; although it appears that the Cappellini was considered for an attempt to return to Bordeaux, presumably cancelled by the allied invasion of France in June 1944.

[Picture: Japanese Navy and Kriegsmarine officers and men, this picture is presumed taken in Penang, the Monsun Group's home port.]

Several of the crew of the Italian submarines tried to return to the European theatre as passengers on board a German blockade runner called Burgenland. The ship set off from Singapore but on 5 January 1944 was attacked by the United States navy, which led to Burgenland being scuttled. The survivors, including the former Captain of the Cappellini, were eventually picked up in lifeboats by a Brazilian ship, and made prisoners-of-war.

In May 1945, Nazi Germany surrendered, so the Japanese again took control of these foreign ships, but now commissioned them in their own navy, with Torelli re-re-designated as I-504, with Cappellini as I-503. Both ships now had a tripartite pact crew of Italians and Germans who did not accept the surrender of their home countries, and new Japanese officers.

It was under such a multi-national crew that Torelli managed to down a USAAF B-25 Mitchell bomber over the anchorage at Kobe in late 1945; which has been claimed as the 'final' victory of the Imperial Japanese Navy - once one of the world's greatest, and at the time of Pearl Harbour, owner of the greatest aircraft carrier striking force in the world, and later operator of the world's largest battleships.

Both submarines were scuttled by the United States Navy in the waters near Japan after World War Two.