The Italian-Soviet mystery of Julius Caesar. Who sunk it?

A story connects Italy and Russia, to be considered as part of the old Soviet Union, and connects them with a ship.

At the end of World War II, the peace treaty provided for the sale of a large part of the residual Italian Navy, former Regia Marina. The ships were assigned to the winning powers, but while the US and UK renounced them, demanding the scrapping of the ships as part of the Italian disarmament, the Soviet Union asked for the delivery of the ships that made up its share.

It consisted of some submarines, destroyers, the Cristoforo Colombo School ship and the battleship Julius Caesar.

Giulio Cesare belonged to the Conte di Cavour class. it was not a new ship, having been launched in 1914, but had been completely rebuilt and enlarged in 1933, equipping it, among other things, with 10 modern 320 mm guns in 4 turrets, two twin and two triple. In the Second World War she had taken part in various actions, being hit, without serious damage, by a 381 mm shell from the battleship Warspite.

After the armistice it had stood still, practically without use, and now it had to be sold to the Soviet Union, an act that took place in 1948.

Called Novorossijsk and subjected to some works, the ship was incorporated into the Black Sea fleet. In this space it constituted the "Big Fish", since no coastal country had such a vessel. Also there was the possibility that the ship was transformed into a nuclear-armed missile launcher. But something went wrong.

On October 28, 1955, while anchored in the Sevastopol Bay, the ship blew up with the loss of 605 sailors. The hypotheses that emerged were two:

• The ship exploded due to a magnetic mine abandoned by the Germans twelve years earlier. Large mines had been found, and were found later. in the bay;
• The ship was blown up by members of the former X MAS, in collaboration with the British, using a "Pig", or Slow Running Torpedo, similar to the one used to sink British battleships in Alexandria. An adventurous explanation that would have as its motivation a revenge against the Soviets who had wanted the ship at all costs, and with the support of the Anglo-Americans who were removing a thorn from their side. In this case there are the testimonies, post two thousand of a former raider and the fact that the mine exploded exactly at the junction between the hull of 1914 and the additions of the thirties, a weak point that could only be known to Italians

Now a nice video illustrating the two hypotheses:

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The article The Italian-Soviet mystery of Julius Caesar. Who sunk it? comes from ScenariEconomici.it .

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This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/il-mistero-italo-sovietico-della-giulio-cesare-chi-lha-affondata/ on Fri, 05 Mar 2021 06:30:46 +0000.