Vittorio Veneto

Vittorio Veneto's keel was laid at Cantieri Riuniti dell'Adriatico in Trieste on 28 October 1934 — the same day as her sister Littorio — and she was launched on 25 July 1937, named for Italy's decisive victory over Austria-Hungary at Vittorio Veneto in 1918. Her designed standard displacement of 40,724 long tons was itself a violation of the 35,000-ton limit of the Washington Naval Treaty.

She mounted nine 381 mm Model 1934 guns in three triple turrets and could steam at 30 knots on four Belluzo geared turbines of 128,000 shaft horsepower. Her belt was 280 mm backed by a second 70 mm layer, and underwater she relied on the Pugliese torpedo defence system. Fitting-out dragged on through design changes and shortages of heavy armour plate; only the Venice Arsenal had a drydock long enough to clean her bottom before trials. She and Littorio were formally declared operational on 2 August 1940.

When 21 Swordfish from HMS Illustrious struck Taranto on the night of 11–12 November 1940, Vittorio Veneto came through untouched while three other battleships were hit; the next morning she led the fleet to Naples and became flagship under Admiral Campioni. At the Battle of Cape Spartivento on 27 November she engaged British cruisers at the extreme range of 27,000 metres, firing 19 rounds in seven salvos and slightly damaging the light cruiser Manchester — enough to turn the outgunned cruisers back — while evading torpedoes from Ark Royal's aircraft.

Off Cape Matapan in March 1941 she opened fire on HMS Orion, straddling the British cruisers repeatedly through smoke without hitting, expending 92 main-battery rounds. Then, at 15:10, a Swordfish from HMS Formidable put a torpedo into her port quarter — shearing off the port propeller, jamming the port rudder and letting in some 4,000 tons of water. Shot down after dropping, the aircraft had nearly stopped the fleet flagship dead.

Her engine-room crews restarted the starboard shafts, steering was worked by hand, and she crawled home at 20 knots. A later strike meant for her hit the cruiser Pola instead; the ships sent back for Pola — three cruisers and two destroyers — were annihilated that night at close range by the battleships Valiant, Warspite and Barham. Vittorio Veneto reached Taranto on 29 March and was not fully operational again until August.

On 14 December 1941 the submarine HMS Urge torpedoed her in the Straits of Messina, tearing a hole 13 metres long; the Pugliese system contained the blast, and despite over 2,000 tonnes of flooding she steamed to port under her own power, out of action until early 1942. In June 1942 she and Littorio sortied against the Operation Vigorous convoy from Alexandria: the threat of the Italian battleships alone forced the convoy back before contact was ever made.

She was the most active Italian battleship of the war, with eleven offensive operations to her name, but crippling fuel shortages curtailed the fleet's activity from 1942 onwards. On 5 June 1943 an American air raid on La Spezia hit her with two large bombs toward the bow; only one detonated, passing clean through the ship and exploding beneath the hull, and the structural damage forced her to Genoa for repair because the La Spezia dockyard had been wrecked in the same attack.

When Italy signed the armistice on 3 September 1943, Vittorio Veneto sailed with the fleet for Malta and internment. On the way the Luftwaffe attacked with Dornier Do 217s carrying Fritz X radio-controlled bombs: Vittorio Veneto was undamaged, but Littorio — renamed Italia — was hit, and her sister Roma was sunk. She spent the following three years under British control in Egypt, moored in the Great Bitter Lake of the Suez Canal from October 1943 until October 1946.

The 1947 Treaty of Peace allocated her to Britain as a war prize. Paid off on 3 January 1948 and stricken on 1 February, she was broken up for scrap. Her guns outlived her: twelve of her 90 mm anti-aircraft pieces re-emerged as a Yugoslav coastal battery on Žirje Island, which Croatian forces took over in September 1991 and used in the defence of Šibenik, helping bottle up a quarter of the Yugoslav Navy's patrol fleet in harbour.