The wreck of a WWI Italian warship
sunk by an Austrian torpedo sending 1,916 Italian soldiers to
their deaths in June 1916 - the Italian navy's greatest single
loss of life - has been found off Albania, the Gazzettino
reported Thursday.
The Principe Umberto was found about a month ago, the daily
reported, by an undersea rover operated by Swiss-Italian
engineer Guido Gay, off Capo Linguetta.
In 2012 Gay found the wreck of the battle cruiser Roma, sunk by
the Germans in 1943, off the island of Asinara in Sardinia.
Many of the 1,916 Italian soldiers who drowned when the Principe
Umberto went down were being transferred from Albania to the
main Italia-Austrian front line at Isonzo north of Venice.
They were members of the 55th royal army regiment, 521 of them
from the province of Treviso.
The ship, 145m long and weighing 7,929 tonnes, was part of a
class of three units called Regale, including also the Regina
Elena and the Re Vittorio.
It was torpedoed on June 8 1916 by an Austrian submarine while
crossing the Otranto Channel.
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