Nereide was a in the Italian Royal Navy () during World War I. She was built 1911–1913 at the navy yard at Venice (Italian: Regio Arsenale) and was sunk in 1915 by the Austro-Hungarian submarine under the command of Georg Ritter von Trapp. Nereides captain, Carlo del Greco posthumously received the Medaglia d'Oro al Valore Militare for his actions when Nereide was sunk.
Design and construction The Italian Nautilus was designed by Curio Bernardis, later a well-known submarine designer. Nereides hull, like that of her sister ship , was shaped similar to a torpedo boat. She was long with a beam of and a draft of . She was outfitted with two shafts powered by twin Sulzer diesel engines for surface running at up to , and twin Ansaldo electric motors for a maximum of when submerged. Nereide was armed with two bow torpedo tubes and could carry up to 4 torpedoes. She was designed for a complement of 19–2 officers and 17 sailors.
Nereide was laid down at the Venice Navy Yard on 1 August 1911, and was launched on 12 July 1913. It is not known when Nereide was commissioned, but it was most likely after her completion on 20 December 1913. Little is known about Nereides service career in the Règia Marina before August 1915.
Sinking
After Italy's entry into World War I, the country's armed forces occupied the island of Pelagosa in the central Adriatic.Halpern, p. 149. After scouting reports from the German submarine and from an Austro-Hungarian reconnaissance aircraft reported a French or Italian submarine—which was, in fact, Nereide—at Pelagosa in early August 1915, the Austro-Hungarian Navy dispatched its submarine , under the command of Georg Ritter von Trapp,Georg Ritter von Trapp was the patriarch of the von Trapp family made famous in The Sound of Music. from nearby Lissa.von Trapp, p. 41. On the morning of 5 August, Nereide was on the surface, moored under a cliff in the island's harbor.
When U-5 surfaced just offshore, Nereides commanding officer, Capitano di Corvetta Carlo del Greco, cast off the lines and maneuvered to get a shot at von Trapp's boat. Nereide launched a torpedo at U-5 but missed, after which del Greco ordered his boat down. U-5 lined up a shot and launched a single torpedo at the slowly submerging target, striking her, and sending her to the bottom with all hands.Stern, pp. 39–40.Stern (p. 40) reports 20 men were killed when Nereide went down; Sieche (p. 22) reports a loss of 17. Carlo del Greco received the Medaglia d'Oro al Valore Militare for his actions.Stern, p. 40. Nereides wreck was located in 1972 at position .
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Bibliography
External links Nereide Marina Militare website