Italy:
Roma was the fourth
Vittorio Veneto-class battleship of Italy’s
Regia Marina (Royal Navy). She was laid down almost four years after the first two ships of the class (
Impero and
Vittorio Veneto) and was commissioned on 14 June 1942.
On 9 September 1943 she was sunk by the German Luftwaffe with a Fritz X radio-controlled bomb. Roma capsized, broke into two, and sank carrying 2 Admirals, 86 Officers and 1264 sailors down with her.
"At 1533 the first aircraft attacked. It dropped its bomb at the same 60-degree angle as the earlier one had. But as it came down, they noticed that instead of simply falling downward, it came at them as if it were being steered. It splashed into the water, narrowly missing the stern of the battleship
Italia by just a few feet. Then it exploded. A few seconds later, the
Italia reported that the explosion had jammed its rudder and that it could no longer steer.
Tense minutes passed as the repair crews aboard the
Italia struggled to free the rudder. While they did, messages traveled back and forth between the ships about what had happened. Several of the lookouts reported that the bomb seemed to have four long wing-like fins and a boxlike tail. Someone noted that instead of peeling off once the bomb had been released, the Dornier remained in place, flying slowly, as if it needed to stay there to guide the bomb in.
At 1545 there was another attack. The AA batteries opened fire, but again the bomber was beyond the range of their guns. The Do 217 released its bomb and maintained its position as the bomb hurtled downward toward the Italian fleet. Sure enough, as it came in, it became sickeningly obvious that the bomb was being steered to the target.
The bomb struck
Roma on its starboard side aft of amidships, crashing through the ship’s seven decks, and exited the hull before exploding beneath the keel. The boiler rooms and after engine room flooded, disabling the two inboard propellers. Electrical arcing started innumerable fires throughout the after portion of the ship. Her speed now reduced to 12 knots, the
Roma fell out of the battle group. By now, many of the ship’s electrically controlled systems, its directors and gun mounts were out.
At 1552,
Roma was hit by a second bomb, again on the starboard side, this time detonating inside the forward engine room. The forward magazine detonated. There was heavy flooding in the magazines of main battery turret No. 2 as well as the forward portside secondary battery turret. A few moments later the No. 2 turret’s magazines exploded, blowing the entire turret skyward. The forward superstructure was destroyed with it, killing Bergamini, the ship’s captain, Adone Del Cima, and nearly everyone else there. Fires had broken out all over the ship. Whoever wasn’t killed was burned horribly. At 1612,
Roma began going down, bow first. Then, her starboard decks awash, the
Roma capsized, broke in two and sank. By 1615, she was gone, with 1,253 of her crew of 1,849 officers and men dead.
What sent
Roma to the bottom was the first of a wholly new class of weapon, known today as
precision guided munitions (PGM). This PGM in particular was a massive 3,450-pound, armor-piercing, radio-controlled, glide bomb, which the Luftwaffe called Fritz-X
