Word: littorio
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Cameras for Guns. The Warspite had fought the Italians at Matapan; she had put a broadside into the Italia (then the Littorio) at Taranto. She had been bombed off Crete. Of late she had seen nothing of the Italian Navy. Now, as the Italians approached, the Warspite's crew manned the guns. But they were not in combat dress. Many of them aimed cameras...
...Rome, as a center of Italian rail communications, forms an integral link between northern and southern Italy. It was to interrupt this vital line of supplies for Axis armies in the south that U.S. bombers twice blasted Rome's most important railway centers, the San Lorenzo and Littorio yards...
...Italians had at least one 35,000-ton battleship (probably the Littorio), with 15-in. guns; the Trento and the Trieste, heavy cruisers with 8-in. guns; three or four light, 6-in.-gun cruisers of the Condottieri class, and a destroyer screen. None of the British light cruisers could match the Trento or Trieste, much less the battleship. Admiral Vian invoked the tactics which dogged the Graf Spee to suicide in 1939. His light force laid down an intricate smokescreen, then peppered and confused the heavier enemy with darting attacks and withdrawals...
...After some time of this their support in the form of a Littorio Class battleship appeared to starboard, steaming at high speed toward us. We turned away and increased speed, and she opened fire at a range of about 30,000 yards before we had completed our turn. We were left in no doubt as to which ship was their target...
...immediately turned that way to give battle. After two hours' steaming they sighted four Italian cruisers and closed in, firing. The Italians turned tail, belching smoke. After a half-hour's chase, the British cruisers sighted the Italian battleships, one of the Cavour and one of the Littorio class, which opened with their biggest guns (12.6-in. and 15-in.). With heavy metal flying around them, the British now turned off, inviting pursuit by the speedy Italians...