Italian submarine Comandante Cappellini

<th colspan="2" >Service record as Comandante Cappellini <th colspan="2" >Service record as UIT-24 <th colspan="2" >Service record as I-503

Italian submarine Comandante Cappellini in the Inland Sea, Japan in August 1944.
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Italian submarine Comandante Cappellini was a World War II Italian built for the Italian Royal Navy (Template:Langx). After Italy's surrender, the submarine was captured by the Japanese and handed over to Germany as UIT-24. Following the capitulation of Germany, the Japanese integrated the boat into their fleet as I-503 (Template:Langx).

The Comandante Cappellini and sister submarine Luigi Torelli were the only two ships to fly the flags of all three main Axis powers during World War II.

Service history

Operating under the command of Capitano di corvetta Cristiano Masi, later Capitano di corvetta Salvatore Todaro, then of Tenente di vascello Aldo Lenzi, later of Tenente di vascello Marco Revedin and Capitano di corvetta Walter Auconi, Comandante Cappellini carried out several war patrols in the Atlantic Ocean while based in BETASOM, sinking 31,648 gross registered ton of enemy shipping. She participated in the rescue of the survivors of the in September 1942. It was later converted to the transport of strategic materials to and from Japan. After Italy's capitulation in 1943, the submarine was captured by the Imperial Japanese Navy and handed over to Germany at Sabang on 10 September 1943. Commissioned into the Kriegsmarine as foreign U-boat UIT-24 and assigned to 12th U-boat Flotilla with a mixed Italian and German crew. She remained in the Pacific because of failed attempts to return to the 12th Flotilla base at Bordeaux in occupied France.

At Germany's surrender in May 1945, the submarine was taken over and commissioned into the Imperial Japanese Navy as I-503 (her crew now a mixture of Italians, Germans, and Japanese) and shuttled between ports as a transport submarine. At Japan's surrender in August 1945, she was seized by the United States Navy, which scuttled her off Kobe on 16 April 1946.

In fiction

Cappellini is mentioned (and seen briefly in some scenes) in the 2011 TV movie The Sinking of the Laconia. The Capellini and her crew are the main subject of a Japanese two hour TV 2022 special Template:Interlanguage link (The adventure of the Submarine Cappellini). The vessel plays a central part in the 2023 Italian war film Comandante.

Summary of raiding history

Ships sunk by Comandante Cappellini

Date	Ship Name	Nationality	Tonnage (GRT)	Fate
15 October 1940	Kabalo	Belgium	5,186	Sunk
5 January 1941	Shakespeare	United Kingdom	5,029	Sunk
14 January 1941	Eumaeus	United Kingdom	7,472	Sunk
18 May 1942	Tisnaren	Sweden	5,747	Sunk
31 May 1942	RFA Dinsdale	United Kingdom	8,214	Sunk
Total:			31,648

See also

• Italian submarines of World War II

Bibliography

• Léonce Peillard, 長塚隆二(Translation), Submarine war 1939-1945 (潜水艦戦争 1939-1945), Hayakawa Publishing, 1979 (Japanese)

External links

• Submarine I-503: Tabular Record of Movement
• Comandante Cappellini at regiamarina.net
• About Comandante Cappellini as transport submarine to Singapore
• Comandante Cappellini (1939) Marina Militare website

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