Nazario Sauro was the lead ship of her class of four destroyers built for the (Royal Italian Navy) in the 1920s. Completed in 1926, she served in World War II.

Design and description The Sauro-class destroyers were enlarged and improved versions of the preceding . They had an overall length of , a beam of and a mean draft of . They displaced at standard load, and at deep load. Their complement was 8–10 officers and 146 enlisted men.

The Sauros were powered by two Parsons geared steam turbines, each driving one propeller shaft using steam supplied by three Yarrow boilers. The turbines were rated at for a speed of in service,Roberts, p. 298 although Nazario Sauro reached a speed of from during her sea trials while lightly loaded.McMurtrie, p. 281 The ships carried enough fuel oil to give them a range of at a speed of .Whitley, p. 160

Their main battery consisted of four guns in two twin-gun turrets, one each fore and aft of the superstructure.Fraccaroli, p. 47 Anti-aircraft (AA) defense for the Sauro-class ships was provided by a pair of AA guns in single mounts amidships and a pair of machine guns. They were equipped with six torpedo tubes in two triple mounts amidships. The Sauros could also carry 52 mines.

Construction and career Nazario Sauro was laid down by Odero-Terni-Orlando at their Genoa-Sestri Ponente shipyard on 9 February 1924, launched on 12 May 1926 and commissioned on 23 September 1926.

After entering service in 1926, Nazario Sauro served with the Regia Marina during the interwar period. By the mid-1930s she had been assigned to the Italian Red Sea Flotilla based at Massawa, Eritrea, as part of the 3rd Destroyer Squadron.

Following Italy’s entry into World War II in June 1940, she took part in operations in the Red Sea and during the East African Campaign against British naval forces and convoys. In April 1941, with the collapse of Italian East Africa imminent, Nazario Sauro was among the destroyers ordered to carry out a final attack against Port Sudan. The force was detected by British reconnaissance aircraft and repeatedly attacked by Fleet Air Arm Fairey Swordfish bombers on 3 April 1941. Nazario Sauro was hit by several 224kg bombs, capsized, and sank in the Red Sea at approximately 9:00 AM with the loss of 78 lives.

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Bibliography

External links Nazario Sauro (1926) Marina Militare website