Angelo Parona

Parona was born in Novara, Piedmont, on 23 April 1889, son of Emilio Parona and Elena Tarella. He entered the Naval Academy in Livorno in 1906 and graduated in 1910 with the rank of ensign. He participated in the Italo-Turkish War on board the armored cruiser Varese; when Italy entered World War I, Parona, by then a lieutenant, was assigned to the ironclad battleship . During World War I, Parona initially took part in ground fighting on the Isonzo front with the Naval Brigade; he was awarded a Silver Medal of Military Valor for an action near Monfalcone in May 1916. Later in the war, he was given command of the submarine F 17, distinguishing himself and receiving a Bronze Medal of Military Valor for an action against a convoy in the Adriatic Sea in July 1918. He remained in the submarine branch even after World War I; he was promoted to lieutenant commander in 1922 and to commander in 1927. After attending the Naval Warfare Institute, he was assigned for three years to the office of the Chief of Staff of the Navy. In 1932 Parona, together with Captain Vladimiro Pini, translated in Italian Hermann Bauer's Das Unterseeboot: Seine and Bedeutg als Teil. fleets; Seine Stellg im Völkerrecht; Seine Kriegsverwendg; Seine Zukunft, a treatise on the design and the tactical use of the U-Boat. Promoted to captain in 1937, for the next two years Parona held the office of naval attaché at the Embassy of Italy in Paris. Between August 1936 and August 1937 Parona was the commanding officer of the heavy cruiser Trieste, and then he became chief of staff of the 3rd Naval Division. In 1938, after promotion to rear admiral, he became deputy inspector of the construction and testing of the new ships built for the Navy, and then head of cabinet of the Ministry of the Navy in Rome. ==World War II and aftermath==

, 1941 When Italy entered World War II on 10 June 1940, Parona held the post deputy commander of Italy's submarine fleet. On 25 July 1940, after the fall of France, the Ministry of the Navy sanctioned the establishment of the Italian Atlantic Command and appointed Parona commander of the 21st Submarine Group, that would operate in the Atlantic. In August 1940 Parona, together with German Admiral Eberhard Weichold (the Kriegsmarine liaison officer in Italy), visited a number of ports on the Atlantic coast and chose Bordeaux as the basis for the Italian submarines. According to the official history of the Italian Navy, published in 1971, Parona instead had the list destroyed and, during the German occupation of Rome, co-operated with the Clandestine Military Front, a Resistance organization that included several high-ranking officers of the Italian armed forces. After the liberation of Rome, Parona resumed active service and was appointed Commander of the Naval Department of the Ionian Sea (with headquarters in Taranto), a role that he held from 1944 to 1946. In 1945 he was promoted to admiral. From 1948 to 1951 he was responsible for the permanent lighting of coasts and headlights. He was placed in the reserve in 1951. Parona died in Rome on 14 May 1977. ==Note==