二次世界大戰資料庫 (WW2DB)

Contributor: C. Peter Chen

ww2dbaseGiulio Cesare was a WW1-era battleship though she had no active missions during that war. In 1926, she attacked the Greek island of Corfu as a response to the killing of Italian representatives in Ioannina. She was decommissioned in 1928. Between 1933 and 1937 she was completely rebuilt then recommissioned for WW2 service. At the Battle of Calabria on 9 Jul 1940, she was damaged by a 381mm shell from British battleship Warspite. She served extensively during the Malta Campaign, escorting Italian convoys to North Africa and intercepting British convoys to Malta. In 1942, she was relegated to a training role. After the Italian surrender, she was given to Russia as reparations, and served in the Russian Navy as battleship Novorossiysk. She suffered a mysterious explosion on 29 Oct 1955 and sank; the reason was likely a remaining WW2-era German mine, though conspiracy theories exist for the explosion that killed 608 Russian sailors.

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Giulio Cesare Operational Timeline