Audace was a destroyer of the Italian Regia Marina (Royal Navy). Originally, the Imperial Japanese Navy ordered her as the Kawakaze, but the Japanese sold her to the Kingdom of Italy in 1916 while she was under construction. The Italians briefly named her Intrepido before renaming her Audace. Commissioned in 1917, she played an active role in the Adriatic campaign of World War I. During the interwar period, she operated in the Adriatic, Aegean, Mediterranean, and Red seas and was reclassified as a torpedo boat in 1929.
Audace took part in the Italian intervention in the Spanish Civil War in 1937 and served during the late 1930s as the command ship for the radio-controlled target ship . Rearmed for convoy escort and patrol duties when Fascist Italy entered World War II in 1940, she served in the Mediterranean campaign. When Italy surrendered to the Allies in 1943, she was captured by Nazi Germany and thereafter served in the Kriegsmarine as TA20, operating as a minelayer and escort ship in the Adriatic campaign until she was sunk by a pair of British destroyers late in 1944.
Design and description Audace had a length between perpendiculars of and an overall length of . She had a beam of and a draft of . Her displacement was greater than that of her sister ship Urakaze: She displaced more than at normal load, and at deep load. Her complement was five officers and 113 enlisted men.Fraccaroli 1970, p. 72
Audace was powered by two Brown-Curtis steam turbines, each driving one propeller shaft using steam supplied by three Yarrow boilers. Designed for a maximum output of and a speed of , she handily exceeded this, reaching a speed of during her sea trials while lightly loaded. Her intended German-built diesel cruising engines were not delivered because of World War I. She had a cruising range of at a speed of and at a speed of .Fraccaroli 1985, p. 269
Only two quick-firing (QF) 39-caliber two-pounder anti-aircraft guns had been installed aboard Audace before Japan sold her to Italy in 1916. The gun fired its , high-explosive shells at a muzzle velocity of .Friedman, p. 119 The Italians completely revised her gun armament from what the Japanese had planned for her: The ship's main armament consisted of seven QF Cannon 76/40 Model 1916 guns in single mounts. This gun fired a projectile at a muzzle velocity of .Friedman, p. 241 Audace also had four torpedo tubes in twin mounts, one on each broadside.
Construction and commissioning The Government of Japan authorized the construction of two s — later named and Kawakaze — in 1911 and ordered them from the British firm Yarrow Shipbuilders, placing the order for Kawakaze in 1913.Marina Militare (in Italian). InternetArchiveBot. Kawakaze was laid down as Destroyer No. 36大正3年9月12日付 達第137号。命名時の艦名カナ表記に濁点は入れられていない (Letter No. 137, September 12, 1919) (in Japanese). at Yarrow's shipyard in Scotstoun, Scotland, on 1 October 1913. Construction was delayed by a backlog of previous orders and then by the outbreak of World War I,Fraccaroli 1970, pp. 72, 74 which the United Kingdom entered on 4 August 1914. The ship received the name Kawakaze () on 26 September 1914. The Japanese had planned for Kawakaze to have a diesel engine for cruising, but the reduction gear for that engine, manufactured by the German firm Furkan, became unavailable with the outbreak of World War I, meaning that she would be delivered with only steam turbine propulsion, making her less valuable to the Japanese.大正5年8月7日付 達第120号 (Navy Bulletin No. 120, 7 August 1919) (in Japanese).大正5年8月7日付 達第121号 (Navy Bulletin No. 121, 7 August 1919) (in Japanese).
Italy entered the war on the side of the Allies in May 1915, and the Italians, desperately short of destroyers, began negotiations with the Japanese to acquire Kawakaze. On 3 July 1916, Japan sold Kawakaze to Italy. On 5 July 1916 the Italian Regia Marina (Royal Navy) named its new acquisition Intrepido, a name previously held by the destroyer , which sank after striking a mine in 1915, but on 25 September 1916 renamed her Audace, carrying forward the name of the previous destroyer , which sank in 1916 after a collision. Audace was launched on 27 September 1916 and completed without her armament on 23 December 1916.Fraccaroli 1970, p. 74
Audace steamed to Naples, which she reached on 9 January 1917. Her armament was installed at Naples, and she was commissioned on 1 March 1917.
Service history World War I 1917 Audace got underway from Naples in March 1917 to proceed to Brindisi. During her voyage to Brindisi, she escorted the Italian submarines and , which had just arrived in Italy from their construction yard in Canada, from Messina to Taranto. She soon deployed to the upper Adriatic Sea.
On 11 May 1917 Audace got underway from Venice with the destroyers , , , and to intercept an Austro-Hungarian Navy force consisting of the destroyer and the torpedo boats , , and . They sighted the Austro-Hungarian ships at 15:30 at a range of about but were unable to engage the Austro-Hungarian ships before they escaped behind the protection of a minefield near the major Austro-Hungarian Navy base at Pola, and after approaching Pola the Italian ships gave up the chase and returned to Venice.
On the night of 13–14 August 1917 Audace left Venice with Animoso, Ardente, Giuseppe Cesare Abba, and the destroyers , , , , and to intercept an Austro-Hungarian force made up of the destroyers , , , , and and six torpedo boats which had supported an air raid by 32 aircraft against the fortress of Venice that killed 14 people and injured around 30 others. Only Vincenzo Giordano Orsini managed to make brief and fleeting contact with the Austro-Hungarian ships before they escaped.
On 29 September 1917 Audace — serving as flagship of a squadron commanded by Capitano di fregata (Frigate Captain) Arturo Ciano, a future admiral — put to sea with Ardente, Ardito, and a second formation made up of Francesco Stocco, Giovanni Acerbi, Giuseppe Cesare Abba, Vincenzo Giordano Orsini, and the scout cruiser Sparviero to support a bombing raid by 10 Italian airplanes against Pola. They encountered an Austro-Hungarian force composed of Streiter, Velebit, the destroyers and , and four torpedo boats on a similar mission against an Italian airbase. The Italians opened fire just before midnight at a range of , but received the worst of the initial exchange as the Austro-Hungarians concentrated their fire on the leading ship, Sparviero. Sparviero was hit five times, but only three men were wounded, and one Italian destroyer was hit. As the Austro-Hungarians retreated towards the shelter of their minefields, the Italians crippled Velebit and set her on fire. Another Austro-Hungarian destroyer took her in tow and both sides returned to port after an inconclusive exchange of fire inside the minefields later that night during the predawn hours of 30 September.
On 16 November 1917 Audace, Animoso, Ardente, Francesco Stocco, Giovanni Acerbi, Giuseppe Cesare Abba, and Vincenzo Giordano Orsini got underway to respond to a bombardment carried out by the Austro-Hungarian coastal defense ships and against Italian artillery batteries and other coastal defenses at Cortellazzo, near the mouth of the Piave River. The destroyers supported an attack by the Italian motor torpedo boats MAS 13 and MAS 15 which, together with attacks by Italian aircraft and the Italian submarines and , disrupted the bombardment and forced the two Austro-Hungarian ships to withdraw. On 18 November 1917 Audace, Animoso, Ardente, and Giuseppe Cesare Abba bombarded the Austrian-Hungarian lines on the Italian front between Caorle and Revedoli.
On 28 November 1917, an Austro-Hungarian Navy force consisting of Dinara, Huszar, Reka, Streiter, the destroyers and , and the torpedo boats , , , and attacked the Italian coast. While Dikla, Huszar, Streiter and the torpedo boats unsuccessfully attacked first Porto Corsini and then Rimini, Dinara, Reka, and Triglav bombarded a railway near the mouth of the Metauro, damaging a train, the railway tracks, and telegraph lines. The Austro-Hungarian ships then reunited and headed back to the main Austro-Hungarian naval base at Pola. Audace, Animoso, Ardente, Ardito, Francesco Stocco, Giovanni Acerbi, Giuseppe Cesare Abba, Giuseppe Sirtori, Sparviero, Vincenzo Giordano Orsini, and the scout cruiser departed Venice and, together with reconnaissance seaplanes, pursued the Austro-Hungarian formation. The seaplanes attacked the Austro-Hungarians without success, and the Italian ships had to give up the chase when they did not sight the Austro-Hungarians until they neared Cape Promontore on the southern coast of Istria, as continuing beyond it would bring them too close to Pola.
1918 On 10 February 1918, Audace, Animoso, and Giuseppe Cesare Abba departed Venice to participate in a raid on Bakar (known to the Italians as Buccari) on the coast of Austria-Hungary. While Aquila, Ardente, Ardito, Francesco Stocco, Giovanni Acerbi, and Giuseppe Sirtori stood by at Porto Levante in case they needed to support the operation, Audace, Animoso, and Giuseppe Cesare Abba towed the motor torpedo boats MAS 94, MAS 95, and MAS 96 to the pre-established "Point O," east of Sansego, where they passed their tow cables to the coastal torpedo boats , , and , then cruised off Ancona while the coastal torpedo boats towed the MAS boats closer to the coast and the MAS boats carried out the raid. The results of the raid — damage to one steamer — were militarily insignificant, but the raid was of great propaganda value in Italy, where it was celebrated widely as the "Bakar mockery" (Beffa di Buccari), aspects of which the Italian nationalist poet Gabriele D'Annunzio, who took part in the raid, orchestrated.
On the night of Audace, Francesco Stocco, Giovanni Acerbi, Giuseppe Sirtori, Vincenzo Giordano Orsini, and the destroyers and provided distant support to a formation consisting of the torpedo boats and and the coastal torpedo boats , , , , , , , and . While 15 OS, 18 OS, and 3 PN, towing dummy landing pontoons, staged a simulated amphibious landing to distract Austro-Hungarian troops in support of an Italian advance on the Italian front, 48 OS, 40 PN, 64 PN, 65 PN, and 66 PN bombarded the Austro-Hungarian lines between Cortellazzo and Caorle, proceeding at low speed between the two locations, with Climeme and Procione in direct support. Meanwhile, an Austro-Hungarian force consisting of the destroyers and and the torpedo boats and had put to sea from Pola late on the evening of 1 July to support an Austro-Hungarian air raid on Venice.THE ACTIVITIES OF DESTROYERS DURING THE WAR After an Italian MAS boat made an unsuccessful torpedo attack against Balaton, which was operating with a faulty boiler, at first light on 2 July, the Italian and Austro-Hungarian destroyers sighted one another at 03:10 on 2 July. The Italians opened gunfire on the Austro-Hungarians, who returned fire. During the brief exchange of gunfire that followed, Balaton, in a more advanced position, suffered several shell hits on her forward deck, while Audace, Giuseppe La Masa, and Giuseppe Missori fired on Csikós and the two torpedo boats, scoring a hit on Csikós in her aft boiler room and one hit on each of the torpedo boats. On the Italian side, Francesco Stocco suffered damage which set her on fire and killed and injured some of her crew. While Giovanni Acerbi remained behind to assist Francesco Stocco, the Austro-Hungarians withdrew toward Pola and the Italians resumed operations in support of their own torpedo boats.