The sinking of the destroyer Libeccio

Libeccio, a Maestrale-class destroyer, was torpedoed and sunk by HMS Upholder on 9 November 1941. Her sinking is thus described by capitano di fregata (Commander) Corrado Tagliamonte, her commanding officer, in his report:

 

“06.40 – A violent explosion astern. All the aftermost part of the ship, including the aft [120 mm] mount and part of the aft engine room skylight, suddenly disappear. A large part of the personnel who are in the stern are thrown into the water. The ship develops a considerable list to starboard, 15-20 degrees, and goes down by the stern as if she was about to sink, while clouds of steam escape from the stern. I have the clear impression that Libeccio is going to sink any minute now and that time must not be wasted to save the crew. I therefore order the bridge personnel to jump overboard and give also order for the Carley rafts to be launched. Then, I go down from the bridge and I go on the forecastle, I give order to launch the motor launch and I have a Castellammare-type raft (located astern of the funnel), another float and several pieces of wood thrown into the sea so as to help the men in the water. Then I go amidships, on the starboard side, where the Chief Engineer tells me that he is intercepting the steam [I translated this literally, not very sure it], that he has put the boilers out and that he will report to me about the conditions of the ship as soon as possible. I order the Executive Officer to direct the launch of the motor launch, which will be used, if the ship remains afloat for some time, to ferry the wounded and other personnel [to other ships]. In the meantime, the destroyer Euro (I think about 20 minutes after the explosion) quickly comes up beside us, on the starboard side, in order to take the personnel aboard; but since the list has diminished, having stopped at about 10 degrees, and the situation described by the Chief Engineer is serious but not yet desperate, I order the men who were about to go to Euro to stay aboard. Therefore, Euro goes away. The Chief Engineer (Lieutenant (E) Morando) tells me that the engine room’s aft bulkhead is holding out, despite considerable water seepage. (…) From the forecastle, I tell the crew that I am firmly convinced that the ship will survive and that I will ask the impossible from everyone in order to obtain this. The Chief Engineers, after lighting the boiler, tells me that (…) it will be impossible to keep the boiler burning for more than three hours. (…) Indeed, the consequences of the explosion had affected the entirety of the ship, in fact the main deck had become noticeably hunchbacked near the no. 3 boiler. [The Chief Engineer] asks authoriziation, once the forward engine room is drained, to put out the boiler, try to stop the water infiltrations and place, if possible, blind flanges, already prepared, on the broken pipes (…) I give the authorization. The boiler is put out; but it is not possible to put the blind flanges in place. To the Executive Officer, who meanwhile has succeeded in launching the motor launch [the davits were deformed by the explosion] (…) I order to ferry all the unnecessary personnel, that is both the wounded and the survivors [from the destroyer Fulmine and other sunken ships, picked up by Libeccio during the previous hours], over to Maestrale, which has remained nearby. The motor launch thus starts to ferry over the personnel, but it suffers repeated rudder failures, eventually loses the rudder, and is thus unable to complete more than four voyages. (…) I radio to Maestrale that the forward engine room bulkhead is holding despite some infiltration and that I think it will be possible to contain the leaks for some hours, so I ask for tow. I have the cable readied and I radio to Maestrale “I am ready for towing”. Euro immediately comes closer, but, as [her commander] justly judges my towing cable as too short, he sends his own steel cable and starts the tow, that the conditions of the ship and the sea make very slow and difficult (I estimate that our speed is about two knots). Euro then prepares a heavier towing chain, in order to increase the towing speed. Meanwhile, although several leaks have been stopped, the water level in the forward engine room rises, while the workshop is by now completely flooded. The Chief Engineer speculates that the bulkhead and the hull may be damaged in some unaccessible, or invisible, place. The boiler is lighted again, the pumps are re-activated and also the manual pump is prepared in order to drain the bilge, as well as mess tins and buckets so as to bail out with makeshift means. The Chief Engineers warns me that (…) it will be difficult to succeed in doing so with the above-mentioned scarce means. I reply that it will be necessary to do the impossible. I therefore order the Executive Officer to organize a bucket brigade with all the available personnel. After some time the Chief Engineer tells me that there is no more water available [fresh water, for the boilers] and that the boiler has been put out. We try to stop the flooding with the manual pump and the mess tins; but the inadequacy of all efforts soon becomes evident. (…) In the meantime, the list to starboard and the trim by the stern increase, so much that now the main deck is almost continuously washed over. I am forced to recognized that I don’t have any more means at my disposal to face the situation and I thus decided to order to abandon ship. I inform Euro of this decision, telling her to give up the tow. After doing this, Cigala Fulgosi [Euro’s commanding officer] tells me that he will immediately come up besides me in order to take the crew aboard. I order the Chief Engineer to be ready to flood the forward ammunition magazines and the Executive Officer to open said room’s access hatch so as to allow the air to easily escape (he personally carries out the order). As the ship was already sinking quickly, I did not order to flood the magazine in the end. I order to give custody of each wounded man to two uninjured men who will be tasked with carrying him to Euro. I order the entire crew to gather on the port side. At my request, the Executive Officer, who together with the Supply Officer has carried out a thorough inspection of all rooms, assures me that the entire crew is on deck and ready to abandon ship. Euro, despite the difficulties caused by Libeccio’s instability and leeway, comes up besides our port side and throws a line in the bow, which cannot be fixed because in the last minutes the list has increased so fast that the capsizing of the ship can be considered imminent. Consequently, I order the crew to climb over the railing and go on the ship’s side, as the list has now reached at least 45 degrees. As the list is quickly increasing, I order everyone to jump into the sea. The ship is now exactly horizontal. The ship starts to sink by the stern, righting herself back up, so that I suddenly find myself in the water, and I see the crow’s nest and the forecastle’s port side rigging quickly come towards me, while simultaneously sinking, and pass near me, while the bow appears very high into the sky. The wave generated by the sinking submerges me but pushes me away. I swim towards a nearby raft, from which a line is thrown towards me. I later climb on the raft and order the men to row towards Euro, which we reach about twenty minutes later”.

 

Euro’s commanding officer, Lieutenant Commander Giuseppe Cigala Fulgosi, wrote the following about Libeccio's demise:

 

“When I came alongside Libeccio, I received [from Maestrale] the order to get away from her, and I said this to Commander Tagliamonte, who was on the bridge wing, a few meters from me. He told me: “Do what they say, it can be dangerous for you to stay here, I think it is a submarine”. And he turned towards the bow, where almost all of his crew was gathered, saying: “Libeccio, we remain aboard”. When Maestrale repeated her signal, I ordered to release the lines. A seaman from Libeccio, whose name unfortunately I do not know, released the last line in the bow, saying: “We of Libeccio do not need to leave”. (…) The last image I have of this ship is her bow pointing straight towards the sky and her commander who while holding on to her, with his heavy uniform, peaked cap and no lifejacket, saluted with his arm. I ordered the crew to stand at attention but there was no need, as all of my crew, after releasing the lines, had spontaneuously lined themselves up to honor for the last time the Royal Destroyer Libeccio”.

 

Lieutenant Ennio Giunchi, who had spent 21 months on Libeccio as an Ensign before being transferred to the destroyer Pantera, in the Red Sea, in December 1940, thus remembers the loss of his old ship in his memoir book “Epilogo in Mar Rosso”:

 

“…the seaman leaves a little piece of his heart on every ship that he leaves: on Libeccio I left the greatest piece of my career. Sharks probably ate it, as my old destroyer sleeps at the bottom of the Sicilian Channel, where a torpedo threw her while, stopped in a tragic dawn, she was picking up Fulmine’s survivors. (…) Hard to kill, after going through so much, the old, loyal, good destroyer died while saving men. The explosion of the torpedo blew off her stern, and with the stern disappeared twenty of her men and Fulmine’s officers, who had been sheltered in the crew’s quarters. Gianni De Luca, the officer’s maitre, specialized in shrimps with mayonnaise, also went down. Euro took the stump in tow, which sank after some hours. (…) I can almost see the ostinate, tenacious Libeccio, still afloat without her stern, in the first light of a day of grief, still afloat, list, flinch; but I cannot see her sinking, down for ever with her dead who did not leave her…”