Italian cruiser Bolzano

Bolzano was ordered under the 1929–1930 construction program; A new design was prepared that was based heavily on the Trento class, but also incorporated improvements from the Zara design. These included the new, longer gun, more powerful boilers, and a stepped up forecastle deck to improve seakeeping. She could carry two or three IMAM Ro.43 seaplanes for aerial reconnaissance. Her power plant consisted of four Parsons geared steam turbines, which drove four screw propellers, and were powered by ten oil-fired water-tube boilers, which were trunked into two widely spaced funnels. Her engines were rated at and produced a top speed of . While on speed trials with a light displacement of , she reached from . Electricity was provided by generators with a total output of . Armament and armor Bolzano was armed with a main battery of eight 203 mm Mod 29 53-caliber guns in four gun turrets. The turrets were arranged in superfiring pairs forward and aft. Anti-aircraft defense was provided by a battery of sixteen Škoda 10 cm K10#OTO 100.2F47 History| 47-cal. guns in twin mounts, four Vickers-Terni 39-cal. guns in single mounts and eight guns in twin mounts. Bolzanos secondary battery was revised several times during her career. Two of the 100 mm guns were removed in the late 1930s and eight 54-cal. guns were installed in their place. The eight guns were replaced with four Breda Model 35| 65-cal. anti-aircraft guns in 1942. She also carried a battery of eight torpedo tubes mounted in four above-water, twin launchers. She was protected with an armored belt that was thick amidships, and capped with transverse, armored bulkheads on either end of the citadel. The forward bulkhead was and the aft was . Her armor deck was 50 mm thick in the central portion of the ship and reduced to at either end. The gun turrets had thick plating on the faces and the barbettes they sat in were 60–70 mm thick. The main conning tower had 100 mm thick sides and a thick roof. ==Service history==

The keel for Bolzano was laid down at Ansaldo's shipyard in Genoa on 11 June 1930, and her completed hull was launched on 31 August 1932. The ship was completed on 19 August 1933 and commissioned into the Italian fleet. The ship steamed to the Balearic Islands to retrieve the bodies of six Italian sailors who had been killed on 25 May aboard the auxiliary cruiser by Republican bombers during the Spanish Civil War; Bolzano arrived back in Italy on 3 June. Four days later, she took part in training exercises in the Gulf of Naples; these were held during the visit of German Field Marshal Werner von Blomberg. Another major fleet review took place on 5 May 1938, this time to honor German dictator Adolf Hitler during his state visit. Mussolini visited Bolzano in January 1939 while she was stationed in La Maddalena, Sardinia. The ship took part in a review for Prince Paul of Yugoslavia in the Gulf of Naples on 17 May. She was also present during the first Navy Day celebration, held between 5 and 19 June in Livorno. World War II Upon Italy's entrance into the Second World War on 10 June 1940, Bolzano was assigned to the 2nd Division in the 2nd Squadron, along with the two Trento-class cruisers. On 9 July, the ship took part in the Battle of Calabria; there, she led the line of Italian heavy cruisers as they engaged their British counterparts. She was hit by a salvo of three shells at 16:05 that killed two crewmen and jammed her rudder to port, forcing her to turn in a tight circle. The shells also hit her forward superfiring gun turret, though it was still able to fire. The hits had come from the light cruiser . After the two fleets disengaged, Italian aircraft misidentified the ship as a British vessel and attacked her, though they failed to score any hits. She reached La Spezia on 12 July, where her battle damage was repaired. By the night of 11–12 November, Bolzano had been moved to Taranto; she was present during the raid on Taranto that night, but was not attacked by the British torpedo bombers. On 26 November, Bolzano and the rest of the fleet sortied to intercept a British convoy to Malta. In the ensuing Battle of Cape Spartivento, Bolzano engaged the battlecruiser , but neither ship scored any hits before both sides broke off the action. She took part in the sweep into the eastern Mediterranean in late March 1941 that resulted in the Battle of Cape Matapan. During the battle, British torpedo bombers attacked Bolzano but she successfully evaded their torpedoes. Bolzano thereafter took part in escort duties for convoys to Tripoli for the next several months to support the Axis forces fighting the North African Campaign. The first such convoy took place on 24–30 April. Another followed a month later on 24–27 May, and two were conducted in June, on 8–9 and 25 June – 1 July. She protected a fifth convoy that steamed to Tripoli and back on 16–20 July. Convoy operations were interrupted in late August by an unsuccessful sweep to locate British warships. While returning to port via the Strait of Messina, Bolzano was torpedoed by the British submarine . She was towed to Messina by a pair of tugs, where repairs were effected, lasting three months. She was back in service in time to escort another convoy to Tripoli on 8–9 November. To keep her from sinking, her crew beached the ship on the island of Panarea. She remained there until 15 September, by which time damage control parties had shored up the damaged hull enough to allow tugs to tow her back to Naples, where she entered the drydock so the damage could be inspected. Temporary repairs were effected, and in October she was transferred further north, to La Spezia, where permanent repairs would be completed. While she was awaiting repairs, the Regia Marina considered rebuilding the ship into a hybrid cruiser-aircraft carrier. On 3 September 1943, Italy surrendered to the Allies, and on 8–9 September, German troops occupied La Spezia. As the ship was still in an unusable condition, her crew did not scuttle Bolzano, instead leaving her partially afloat. During the German occupation, they cannibalized Bolzano and the also-damaged Gorizia for useful parts but otherwise did not make use of her. On the night of 21–22 June 1944, a team of British and Italian frogmen—Italy having re-entered the war on the side of the Allies—entered La Spezia using Chariot manned torpedoes to sink Bolzano and Gorizia to prevent the Germans from sinking them as blockships. They succeeded in sinking Bolzano but Gorizia remained afloat. Bolzano was formally stricken from the naval register on 27 February 1947, and in September 1949, salvage workers raised the ship and she was subsequently broken up for scrap. ==Notes==