Sebastiano Caboto was a vessel of the Italian Regia Marina ("Royal Navy") in commission from 1913 to 1943. She operated as a river gunboat — some sources describe her as an "oceanic gunboat" or "colonial-service gunboat" — from 1913 to 1938, then as a submarine tender. She was named in honor of the Italian explorer Sebastian Cabot.
Design and construction By the early 1900s, Italian traders and entrepreneurs were managing commercial activities in China, especially along the Yangtze. Italians had built textile factories in China and were managing other commercial interests; for example, the importation of coral, which was processed in Italy mainly by artisan companies in Naples and then exported again to East Asia, had become an important activity.Achille Rastelli, Italiani a Shanghai. La Regia Marina in Estremo Oriente, pp. 32–42 (in Italian). For economic reasons, the Italian Regia Marina ("Royal Navy") could no longer afford to station warships in East Asia, and in any event the Regia Marina′s ships were too large to operate without difficulty upstream of Woosung (now Wusong) or Hankow (now Hankou) on the Yangtze. For years, France had assumed the responsibility for the protection of Italian communities in China.ANMI Taranto After the ambassador of the Kingdom of Italy in Peking (now Beijing) contacted him about a need for Italian protection of Italian communities along Chinese rivers, and in particular those on the upper Yangtze and the Peiho, the Italian minister of foreign affairs requested that the Regia Marina take steps to address the issue. The Regia Marina decided to build two river gunboats for service in China.
The Regia Marina ordered the first gunboat, Sebastiano Caboto, in 1910. Colonnello del Genio Navale ("Colonel of the Naval Engineers") Ettore Berghinz designed her, and she was laid down in March 1911. Sources agree that Cantieri Navali Riuniti ("United Shipyards") of Genoa built the ship, but disagree on whether construction took place at the company's shipyard at Genoa or Palermo.La Regia Cannoniera Oceanica Sebastiano Caboto (in Italian).Agenziabozzo (in Italian) Launched on 20 July 1913, she was completed in November 1913.
At 1,000 displacement tons, Sebastiano Caboto was large for a river gunboat, making her capable of crossing the open ocean, but a precise distribution of weight gave her a very shallow draft which, combined with her good maneuverability, allowed her to navigate rivers easily. According to some sources, Berghinz designed Sebastiano Caboto to operate on rivers in South America, in particular the Amazon River, to protect Italian colonists there.Caboto e Quarto nelle foto della Cina – Proietti (in Italian). As built, she was equipped with a circular saw that could be mounted on her bow almost at the waterline, allowing her to extricate herself from the roots of mangroves along rivers such as the Amazon, as well as to break through barriers of logs carried by the current. With the situation calm in South America, Sebastiano Caboto instead was allocated to duty in China, and the saw was landed.
Sebastiano Caboto′s armament consisted of six 76/40 mm Armstrong/Vickers guns and four 6.5/80 mm Maxim machine gunsNavypedia SEBASTIANO CABOTO gunboat (1912)Almanacco storico navale {in Italian) One of the 76 mm guns was located on the bow, a second on the stern, two on the port side, and two on the starboard side. Two of the machine guns were located on the bow and two on the stern. According to one source, the crew consisted of six officers (the commanding officer, two ship's officers, an engineer, a commissary, and a doctor) and 117 petty officers and sailors, although another source places her total crew at 107.
Sebastiano Caboto′s propulsion system consisted of two triple-expansion reciprocating steam engines powered by two coal-burning low-pressure cylindrical boilers operating at 12.6 kilograms per square centimeter (179.21 psi). The engines produced a combined , allowing a maximum speed of . At an economical cruising speed of and with the maximum amount of coal she could bring aboard (100 or 190 tons, according to different sources) the ship could travel , enough to cross the Atlantic Ocean. She also had a substantial sailing rig: Her mainmast had two yards and could carry a square sail, a mainsail, and a counter mainsail, while her mizzenmast, with only one yard, could carry a mainsail and a counter mainsail.
In her operations, Sebastiano Caboto revealed excellent nautical qualities, proving to be manoeuvrable, easy to handle, sufficiently powerful, and capable of economical long-range operations: On 100 tons of coal she could steam . One flaw was her tendency to roll, so her crew often used her sails to better stabilize her as well as slightly increase her speed.
Operational history 1913–1915 After entering service on 23 November 1913, Sebastiano Caboto moved from Palermo to Naples for her fitting out. After its completion, she departed Naples on 11 December 1913 bound for Shanghai. She made the approximately voyage in 110 days, 51 of which were spent at sea and 59 in port. After leaving Naples she called at Port Said, Massawa, Rakmat, Aden, Karachi, Bombay, Colombo, Singapore, and Saigon before arriving in March 1914 in Hong Kong, where she met the armored cruiser , which was about to return to Italy. Departing Hong Kong on 29 March 1914, Sebastiano Caboto made stops at Canton (now Guangzhou) and Macau before arriving at Shanghai on 2 April 1914.naval-history.net HMS Minotaurnaval-history.net HMS Cadmus
As soon as a reorganization, which lasted for almost a month after her arrival, was complete, Sebastiano Caboto began operations, departing Shanghai on 28 April 1914 and steaming up the rivers to the limit of their navigability, in particular up the Yangtze. Although her draft prevented her from operating on the upper Yangtze between Yichang and Suifu (now Yibin), she could navigate the middle and lower Yangtze from is mouth to Yichang. She steamed up the Yangtze to Chungking (now Chongqing), negotiating a very torturous stretch of the river: In the stretch between Yichang and Chungking there were, in addition to numerous whirlpools and countercurrents, about 70 rapids, the level of which could vary, and numerous canyons, varying in length from and in width from , surrounded by hills and mountains whose altitude varied from , and with a difference in altitude of in . In May 1914 Sebastiano Caboto was in Hankow (now Hankou), went up the Yangtze to Cheling, crossed Lake Tung-Ting (now Dongting Lake), and then went up the Xiang River, a tributary of the Yangtze, reaching Changsha in Hunan Province, from the sea. Religious missions, who now found themselves protected from attacks by pirates, stragglers, and the armed forces of Chinese warlords and continuously warring Chinese factions, greeted her with great enthusiasm. Despite the many difficulties and dangers she encountered, she never needed to use her weapons, as her mere presence acted as a deterrent without her having to open fire. During the voyage from Italy to China, she had consumed all of the warranted fire hours for her boilers and operating hours for her steam engines, so after operating on the Chinese rivers for a month, she entered dry dock for end-of-warranty work.
After completion of her drydock work, Sebastiano Caboto resumed operations on Chinese rivers. In July 1914 she was in Nanking (now Nanjing) and later in Tientsin (now Tianjin). During this period, she sometimes became involved in armed conflict and had to use her weapons. At the beginning of August 1914, as World War I broke out in Europe, she went to Tsingtao (now Qingdao)."Britain's East Fleet Sails," New York Times, 1 August 1914.
World War I After Italy entered World War I on the side of the Allies in May 1915, the Republic of China remained neutral and Sebastiano Caboto risked internment by Chinese authorities, but she avoided this by ignoring Chinese demands that she submit to internment, cutting her moorings, and quickly departing for Nagasaki, Japan, where she remained for 18 months.ITALIAN INFLUENCE IN THE "NAPLES OF JAPAN," 1859-1941 When China also entered the war on the side of the Allies in December 1917, Sebastiano Caboto returned to her patrol duties on Chinese rivers. In 1918, a group of prisoners of war of Italian ethnicity captured by Russian forces while serving in the Austro-Hungarian Army and sent from the Russian Empire to Tientsin, where Italian authorities had promised them repatriation to Italy, grew tired of waiting for repatriation and rebelled. They were arrested, and on 10 June 1918 Sebastiano Caboto embarked about a hundred of them. After spending a night on the ship, the former prisoners of war were taken to the Si-Juan concentration camp in Peking.
1919–1934 World War I ended in November 1918. In 1921 a second Regia Marina gunboat, the smaller , whose construction had been interrupted by World War I, joined Sebastiano Caboto in China. Between January and March 1923, Sebastiano Caboto was in Hong Kong.naval-history.net HMS Petersfieldnaval-history.net HMS Ambrose On 6 April 1924, Lieutenant Commander Angelo Iachino, a future admiral, assumed command of Ermanno Carlotto and, noting the worsening of internal conflicts in China, expressed hope for the sending of an expeditionary force that could carry out international police duties: As a result, the Naval Division was established in East Asia."Angelo Iachino" in the Enciclopedia Treccani During the summer of 1924, Sebastiano Caboto conducted a cruise in the waters of Siberia, stopping at Vladivostok and a number of smaller ports.
During these years, Sebastiano Caboto and Ermanno Carloto had the task of protecting Italian missions in China, which, as had occurred prior to World War I, often came under threat of looting by river pirates and the forces of Chinese warlords. The two gunboats also policed shipping on Chinese rivers. Italian standards for the ownership and crewing of Italian-flagged vessels required that shipping companies that owned them have corporate capital that was majority Italian and that the ships themselves have an Italian captain and a crew that was at least two-thirds Italian, even if the crew's composition otherwise was in compliance with regulations in China. Many of the Italian-flagged ships Italian-Chinese shipping companies owned had come under the control of Chinese captains who used them to smuggle weapons. Although Italian agreements with China prohibited Chinese authorities from stopping and inspecting Italian-flagged ships — something viewed as intolerable for the credibility and prestige of the Italian shipping companies and, by extension, of Italy itself — Chinese authorities made several attempts to inspect Italian-flagged ships for illegal activities. Sebastiano Caboto and Ermanno Carloto therefore monitored Italian-flagged ships belonging to Italian-Chinese shipping companies for compliance with Italian requirements and to detect any illegal activities, and they reported ships which did not comply with legal and regulatory requirements to Italian consulate authorities, who could withdraw authorization to use of the Italian flag.
During the first half of the 1920s, Sebastiano Caboto and Ermanno Carloto, reinforced at different times by the protected cruiser , the torpedo boat , and the armored cruiser , found the task of protecting Italian communities and interests in China complicated by Chinese civil conflicts. Sebastiano Caboto often visited Chinese "treaty ports" and steamed up the Yangtze to Hankow, remaining mainly in the lower reaches of the river because of her draft.