Italian submarine Comandante Cappellini

German submarine UIT24 in the Inland Sea, Japan, August, 1944. UIT24 was the ex-Italian submarine Comandante Cappelini and was later the IJN I-503.
Career (Italy)
Name:	Cappellini
Launched:	14 May 1939
Commissioned:	23 September 1939
Renamed:	Aquilla III, May 1943
Fate:	Captured by Japan, 10 September 1943, and handed over to Germany
Career (Germany)
Name:	UIT-24
Acquired:	September 1943
Fate:	Incorporated into Japanese Navy after German surrender in May 1945
Notes:	Mixed Italian/German crew
Career (Japan)
Name:	I 503
Acquired:	May 1945
Fate:	Captured by the U.S. Navy in August 1945, and scuttled, 16 April 1946
Notes:	Mixed German/Japanese crew
General characteristics
Type:	Submarine
Displacement:	1,060 long tons (1,080 t) surfaced 1,313 long tons (1,334 t) submerged
Length:	73 m (239 ft 6 in)
Beam:	7.19 m (23 ft 7 in)
Draught:	5.1 m (16 ft 9 in)
Propulsion:	Diesel-electric 2 × Fiat diesels 2 × CRDA electric motors
Speed:	17.4 knots (20.0 mph; 32.2 km/h) surfaced 8 knots (9.2 mph; 15 km/h) submerged
Complement:	58
Armament:	8 × 21 in (533 mm) torpedo tubes (4 bow, 4 stern) 2 × 3.9 in (99 mm) guns 4 × 13.2 mm (0.52 in) machine guns

Comandante Cappellini or Cappellini was a World War II Italian Marcello-class submarine built for the Italian Royal Navy (Italian: Regia Marina). Operating under the BETASOM command, Comandante Cappellini made war patrols in the Atlantic Ocean sinking or damaging 31,000 tons of enemy shipping. She participated in the rescue of the survivors of the Laconia in September 1942. Was later converted to the transport of strategic materials to and from Japan.^{[citation needed]} 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 despite failed attempts to return to the 12th flotilla base at Bordeaux, France.

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

References

• Erminio Bagnasco, Submarines of World War Two, Cassell & Co, London. 1977 ISBN 1-85409-532-3

External links

• HIJMS Submarine I-503: Tabular Record of Movement
• Regia Marina History