Italian cruiser Raimondo Montecuccoli

Raimondo Montecuccoli, which gives the name to its own sub-class, was part of the third group of Condottieri-class light cruisers. They were larger and better protected than their predecessors. She was built by Ansaldo, Genoa, and was named after Raimondo Montecuccoli, a 17th-century Italian general in Austrian service.

Raimondo Montecuccoli entered service in 1935 and was sent out to the Far East in 1937 to protect Italian interests in China during the Second Sino-Japanese War, and returned home in November 1938 after being relieved by Bartolomeo Colleoni. During the war she participated in the Battle of Punta Stilo, on 9 July 1940, and in the successful attack on Harpoon convoy during the Battle of Pantelleria, on 15 June 1942. Raimondo Montecuccoli and the cruiser Eugenio di Savoia, forming the 7th Division, fought a long gunnery duel off Pantelleria with the escort of a large Allied convoy to Malta, at the end of which their combined fire crippled the destroyer HMS Bedouin and damaged the cruiser HMS Cairo and the destroyer HMS Partridge; only two ships from the convoy reached Malta, one of them holed by a mine. Partridge took the disabled Bedouin under tow. During the last stages of the action, according to post-battle reports from both sides, Raimondo Montecuccoli scored a hit on the minesweeper HMS Hebe at "approx. 26.000 yards".[1] Two Allied freighters from the convoy, the cargo ship Burdwan and the large tanker Kentucky, both of them disabled by previous air attacks and abandoned by their escorts, were finished off by the Italian squadron. Kentucky was shelled and set on fire by Raimondo Monteccucoli's guns.[2] The Italian cruisers also forced Partridge to cast off the tow and leave Bedouin behind. The disabled destroyer was eventually sunk by an Italian SM 79 torpedo bomber.[3]

She was heavily damaged by USAAF bombers in Naples on 4 December 1942, with the loss of 44 of her crew, but having been repaired and just weeks before the armistice, on August 1943, she was operative again. The cruiser became by this time one of the few Italian naval units fitted with the Italian designed radar EC-3 ter Gufo radar. On 4 August Raimondo Montecuccoli along with the light cruiser Eugenio di Savoia, shelled without consequences a small Allied convoy off Palermo during the Allied invasion of Sicily, in an aborted attempt to attack the United States Navy fleet in port. The Allied convoy was actually an American submarine chaser, USS SC-530, escorting a freshwater barge. The Italian cruisers withdrew after picking up a number of coastal search radars tracking them with their Metox devices.[4] After the Armistice she sailed to Malta with the majority of the remaining Italian fleet. Joining the Italian Co-Belligerent navy, she acted as a fast transport ship for the rest of the war.[5] She remained with Italy after the war to serve as a training cruiser until 1964.

Some remains of the ship, along with several artillery pieces and armoured vehicles, are preserved at the Città della Domenica theme and amusement park near Perugia, in Italy. There is the forward mast and a dual artillery mount, placed near the mast.

• Bragadin, Marc'Antonio (1957). The Italian Navy in World War II, United States Naval Institute: Annapolis, Maryland. ISBN 0-405-13031-7
• Brescia, Maurizio (2012). Mussolini's Navy: A Reference Guide to the Regina Marina 1930–45. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 978-1-59114-544-8.
• Chesneau, Roger, ed. (1980). Conway's All The World's Fighting Ships 1922–1946. London: Conway Maritime Press. ISBN 0-85177-146-7.
• Da Zara, Alberto (1949). Pelle d'Ammiraglio (in Italian) (2014 ed.). Ufficio Storico della Marina Militare. ISBN 8898485913.
• Fraccaroli, Aldo (1968). Italian Warships of World War II. Shepperton, UK: Ian Allan. ISBN 0-7110-0002-6.
• Whitley, M. J. (1995). Cruisers of World War Two: An International Encyclopedia. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 1-55750-141-6.