Talk:Italian battleship Roma (1940)

Betrayal

Changing "When Germany learned of the betrayal, the Luftwaffe sent Dornier Do 217s armed with Fritz X radio-controlled bombs to attack the ships." to "When Germany learned of this, the Luftwaffe sent Dornier Do 217s armed with Fritz X radio-controlled bombs to attack the ships.", as betrayal is not only a loaded term, but quite inappropriate here.thestor (talk) 16:56, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

How does "defection" sound to you instead? Parsecboy (talk) 20:59, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

But it wasn't a defection, defection is when you abandon your own government... unless if they were going to Malta to surrender on the admiral's own initiative and against the wishes of, or at any rate without the permission of, the Italian government, which I don't think is the case (not 100% sure). At any rate, if they had gone on to bombard Salerno (and thereby join with the Germans), that would have been a defection. So maybe just stick with "this". Herostratus (talk) 03:19, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

I am good with either, just "this" sounds a bit informal, though I see the problems with defection. As long as we keep away from "betrayal". thestor (talk) 04:45, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Herostratus, one can defect from an alliance just as much as one can defect from one's government, and Italy's attempt to switch sides in September 1943 is routinely described as such. Here are a few sources:

• Hitler's Forgotten Armies: Combat in Norway and Finland: "...with the Army Group South retreating in the Ukraine and Italy about to defect..."

and:

• The Battle of Sicily: "Although Badoglio did not seem to realize it for some time, Hube's skillful delaying action and subsequent evacuation of Sicily — coupled with his own ineptitude — robbed the Italian government of the last, slim chance it had to defect from the Axis and escape German occupation."

The problem with "this" by itself is that it's rather poor writing. Readers won't necessarily know what the "this" refers to. I suppose "this deception" would be another option. Parsecboy (talk) 12:16, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Right, the Italian government defected from/betrayed the Axis (good thing though), but the Roma didn't defect from or betray the Axis -- individual units are supposed to obey their government. I don't know what's wrong with "this" if you remove the "of": "However, the Italian fleet was actually intending to break course and steam towards the British island of Malta to surrender. When Germany learned this [they sent planes]..." Not "of this", the the "of" is unnecessary. "Realized this" would be OK too. "When Germany learned of this [thing]..." (where for [thing] you put in some word -- betrayal, defection, intent (or intention), plan, whatever -- it's just an extra unnecessary word IMO (two, since you kind of have to include "of" also). On consideration, "learned of this intention" would be OK though and clarify what "this" refers to, if that's a possible issue. It's arguable, concision versus clarity. Herostratus (talk) 01:25, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

Details on the sinking

It may be worth adding that the attack was carried out by Kampfgeschwader 100 under the command of Oberstleutnant Bernhard Jope. MisterBee1966 (talk) 09:39, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Yes, this article needs some major work (particularly from Bagnasco's and de Toro's excellent book) and those details will be added when I eventually get around to overhauling the article. Hope you don't mind me splitting this from the above discussion, I figured it would be better to separate them into different threads. Parsecboy (talk) 12:16, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Number?

Olonia references the Italian Navy website which states the following:

Era il 9 settembre del 1943 quando la corazzata Roma, colpita da un aereo tedesco, s’inabissava con 1393 marinai nel Golfo dell’Asinara.

Google gives the translation of the above thusly:

It was 9 September 1943 when the battleship Roma, hit by a German plane, s'inabissava with 1393 sailors in the Gulf of Asinara .

I don't know Italian, but I'm guessing from context that "s'inabissava" translates roughly to "sank." Olonia confirms as he similarly offers,

"It was 9 September 1943 when the battleship Roma, hit by a German aircraft, sank with 1393 men in the Gulf of Asinara"

I do not profess to know all the meticulous ins and outs of our reliable source policy, but somehow I'm guessing that the Italian Defence Ministry (Ministero Della Difesa) would qualify. Jsharpminor (talk) 03:28, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

@Parsecboy, you seem to disagree. It is entirely possible that the cited site is wrong. Would you tell us what source you're getting your information from? Jsharpminor (talk) 03:31, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

Please see my most recent edit. Bagnasco & De Toro wrote the definitive account of this class of battleships, and it is corroborated by Garzke & Dulin, who are noted naval historians. Parsecboy (talk) 03:39, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

As I explained, I am not discussing the reliability of Bagnasco and De Toro, but the result of the inquest they refer to are outdated as a result of more recent search. The inquest which stated the 1849/1253/596 figure only took into account the full crew of the ship and the officers of the Command of the Battle Squadron (not formally part of the crew, but aboard at the time of the sinking) and left out the officers and seamen of the latter command. The revised 2021/1393/628 figure comes from more recent research noticing this mistake. This was also explained in one of the links is posted, but turns out it is not considered reliable; here: http://www.corazzataroma.info/L%27elenco_dei_caduti there's the full list of the men lost with Roma, which the webmasters credits to Pier Paolo Bergamini, son of Admiral Bergamini and author of this book on the matter, but this site has also been rated as unreliable. So it remains the marina.difesa website.--Olonia (talk) 10:48, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

Here's what Bagnasco and De Toro say:

"According to the special inquest commission, 1,253 men, including Admiral Bergamini and his entire staff, died (other sources cite 1,392 dead; see Appendix 2 for details).

And then:

"Officially there were 1,253 dead, including the Commander of the Naval Battle Forces, Vice Admiral Carlo Bergamini, and his entire staff. There were no survivors from the areas forward of the tower, except for one signalman. There were 596 survivors, almost all of whom were from the after sections. Losses could have been even higher if the ship and her structures had not withstood the blast and the flooding for almost 20 minutes, allowing enough time for many to save themselves."

Please explain, if the situation is as simple as you say, that these respected naval historians chose to credit the official number and not the higher figure? I'd also note that admirals' staffs are never and additional 200 or so men. For example, the admiral's staff for Bismarck numbered 65.

And Vincent O'Hara's and Enrico Chernuschi's Dark Navy: The Regia Marina and the Armistice of 8 September 1943 (published 2009) agrees with Bagnasco & De Toro. Mark Stille's Osprey title on these ships, Italian Battleships of World War II also corroborates the figures (published 2011).

Policy requires that follow what reliable sources written by established experts. We do not use self-published sources or books written by non-experts (or worse, those from vanity presses). Parsecboy (talk) 11:42, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

Well how about we just write "more than a thousand..." or "over one thousand..."? This gets the general magnitude of the death count on the table, which is sufficient for a general-purpose encyclopedia IMO, while not pretending a confidence we don't have in a precise count. Anybody who needs to dive deeper into the material to retrieve the precise number for some reason has the refs. Better to be a little vague then take the chance of getting it wrong. Herostratus (talk) 12:30, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

Except we do have confidence in a precise count - noted naval historians all agree on the 1,253 deaths figure. We have a higher estimate from a Marina Militare website and some unreliable self-published sources. And even if we give the Marina Militare website equal weight as the historians, it's common practice to show the discrepancy - see for instance Japanese battleship Yamato or German battleship Tirpitz. Parsecboy (talk) 13:14, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

The situation of Bergamini and Roma was a quite different from Lutjens and Bismarck. Bergamini was not just in command of the Division which comprised Roma, Italia and Vittorio Veneto, but of the entire Italian battle squadron; one rank above the admiral in charge of the Naval Divisions. Moreover, Roma did not leave La Spezia for a raid into the Atlantic, she left a city which was about to be occupied by German forces, from which military personnel was probably going to be evacuated. Anyway; a very respected naval historian, Francesco Mattesini, has sometimes intervened in the talk pages of the Italian wikipedia. He has written several books published by the Historical Office of the Italian Navy, including one of the events following the armistice (La Marina e l'8 settembre). I'll invite him to join the discussion.--Olonia (talk) 15:01, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

This is getting off topic, but you seem to forget that Lütjens was the Flottenchef as of 1940, so his position was identical to Bergamini's. And I've never seen reference to evacuees aboard any of the Italian ships bound for Malta - your assumptions are irrelevant. And while Mattesini's view would be welcome, it will not change the fact that the lower figure will be included in the article. We write articles based on the principle of verifiability, and since numerous, highly respected naval historians have chosen to credit the 1,253 figure, we must reflect that. Parsecboy (talk) 14:49, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

I'm not saying that the ship was carrying "evacuees", just that most likely also the part of Bergamini's staff that would have stayed ashore on normal instances had instead been embarked so as not to leave them in La Spezia. Mattesini is replying to me via e-mail instead of writing on the talk page, so I will report his answer and a reference to a page of his book where he examines the matter. We may keep also the 1,253 figure, but if it turns out that there were indeed 200 more men not counted in the 1,849 estimate, I think we should include that in the page as well, instead of saying merely 1,253 for some historians and 1,393 for others.--Olonia (talk) 00:00, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Parsecboy, if you are intent on showing the discrepancy, then why are you deleting the other data rather than adding the discrepancy? If you were attempting to show the discrepancy from a reliable source, I'd be on your side here. But since you're simply overwriting data that doesn't agree, I have to question your actions. It seems that the basic dispute is that we have two WP:RS that are in contradiction. Is that not fair to say? Jsharpminor (talk) 02:36, 9 March 2015 (UTC) I did not see that you had, in fact, left the other data. I was mistaken and apologize. I have edited the page further, to what should be a neutral view that both sides should be able to agree on? I do not pretend that it is perfect or that it will be left that way as the final form of the article, but for now it should suffice without causing further consternation. Jsharpminor (talk) 03:00, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

The problem is, we have no source for the claim that the higher figure represents more recent research, only what Olonia has claimed. And the books I've noted here have all been published within the last ten years, and coupled with the fact that Bagnasco and De Toro are obviously aware of the discrepancy and chose to discount it, it makes the claim highly dubious. As I said above, they made that choice for a presumably good reason. Parsecboy (talk) 09:57, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Here I am, with Mattesini's reply. There were, indeed, the 200 more men aboard from the Command of the Battle Squadron, which was transferred from Italia (ex Littorio) to Roma on 8 September 1943 when the latter became the new squadron flagship; the early inquest of the Special Enquiry Commission (Commissione d'Inchiesta Speciale, CIS) had forgotten their presence and not included them in the count, hence the 1,849/1,253 figure. Later research from Pier Paolo Bergamini revealed this mistake, and brought the total onboard to 2,021 and the total casualties to 1,393. Reference: Francesco Mattesini, La Marina e l'8 settembre, Roma, Ufficio Storico della Marina Militare, 2002, pages 529-530. --Olonia (talk) 10:10, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for contacting him - feel free to tweak the wording as necessary, but I think this should address our concerns. Parsecboy (talk) 11:51, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Maybe it should be added that this research was made by Pier Paolo Bergamini, and that in addition to Mattesini also the Italian Navy (as seen from the website) seems to credit the 1,393 figure.--Olonia (talk) 11:57, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

How does this look? I think the MM website is redundant to Mattesini's book, but am not too fussed about it. Parsecboy (talk) 13:50, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

I would say okay.--Olonia (talk) 13:54, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Salerno

The page states that when Roma and the other ships sailed from La Spezia "Their stated intent was attacking the Allied ships approaching Salerno to invade Italy (Operation "Avalanche") but, in reality, the Italian fleet was sailing to Malta to surrender following Italy's 8 September 1943 armistice with the Allies." This seems entirely wrong. The official history of the Italian Navy about the events after the armistice (La Marina dall'8 settembre 1943 alla fine del conflitto) does not state anything like that. It was planned, before the armistice, that the fleet would sail to attack the Salerno landing fleet; but after the armistice, the ships were ordered to sail from La Spezia to La Maddalena, from where they would be later redirected to Bona or Malta. Nobody told the Germans that the fleet was going to counter Operation Avalanche, since on 9 September Operation Achse was already underway and the Germans were already in the process of occupying Italy, there were no more "links" between the Italian and German commands. The very reason the fleet left La Spezia, was to avoid falling in German hands. There were no such thing as "breaking course" or a "defection", the orders from the start were to head for La Maddalena and then an Allied-controlled port and the Germans, whom had already begun to behave as enemies, were told nothing at all.--Olonia (talk) 21:40, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

I'm inclined to agree with you - it doesn't make any sense that they'd try to convince the Germans they were attacking the landing after they surrendered. My first guess would be to ping @The ed17:, since he wrote the article and might well remember which of the three citations in that paragraph covers the line in question.

I had a look at O'Hara's & Chernuschi's Dark Navy: the Regia Marina and the Armistice of 8 September 1943, and they make no mention of any kind of feigned attack on the landings (apart from the actual planned operation the night before the armistice, of course). According to the book, Sansonetti ordered Bergamini to head for Bone, but apparently Bergamini never actually acknowledged the order. Parsecboy (talk) 23:28, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

According to the USMM book, the initial destination was to be La Maddalena; this was due to initial reluctance by Bergamini to bring his ships to Malta (not knowing the details of the armistice and the fate of the fleet once in Allied controlled ports), and to the planned transfer of Victor Emmanuel III, his court and the government, after abandoning Rome, to La Maddalena (the destroyers Vivaldi and Da Noli sailed from Genoa and La Spezia, heading for Civitavecchia, for this purpose). Once at La Maddalena, Bergamini would receive from Admiral Brivonesi (Naval commander of Sardinia) further orders (transfer to Malta) and some documents regarding the conditions of the armistice for the Navy. The transfer of the king to La Maddalena was cancelled, however, and when the fleet arrived off La Maddalena, German troops had occupied that base to transfer their troops from Sardinia to Corsica, therefore the stop at La Maddalena was also cancelled and Supermarina ordered Bergamini to head for Bone. The fleet then changed course, presumably to carry out this order, but shortly thereafter the Luftwaffe attacked and sank Roma. --Olonia (talk) 06:48, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

That appears to be generally in agreement with O'Hara & Chernuschi, though they don't go into detail about what Bergamini was supposed to have done in La Maddalena. They do mention that there was some confusion on the Allied side as to what Bergamini's intentions were - it's plausible that whatever author is being used to support the supposed attack on Salerno misinterpreted the confusion. Hopefully Ed can clear up for us what the source in question says. Parsecboy (talk) 12:01, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

Ah, I remembered I have scans of the chapter on Italian battleships from Whitley, and he makes no mention of the feint to Salerno, so we can rule that out. Parsecboy (talk) 12:03, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

Ach. The days when I just dropped all the refs at the end of paragraphs. I'm sorry about that. Garzke and Dulin, p. 405: "Loss of the Roma. The Roma went to sea with other units of the Vittorio Veneto class and the Italian fleet on 9 September 1943. As stipulated in the Italian armistice with the Allies, she was the flagship of Admiral Carlos Bergamini, who commanded the fleet formation. The Italian fleet left La Spezia and was joined by three cruisers from Genoa. The fleet made a feint towards Salerno, ostensibly to attack the Allied invasion force heading there, and then altered course towards Malta. German intelligence quickly learned of the defection, and the Luftwaffe ordered planes armed with guided bombs to attack and destroy the Italian ships."

Of course, that doesn't preclude the possibility that G&D were wrong, and we can certainly revise the sentence to reflect sources that might be closer to the event than those two authors. :-) Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 16:06, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

The more I've used Garzke & Dulin, the less convinced I am of their accuracy. I recall, when writing the articles on Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, the sections on each ship's history contradicted each other about the number of vessels sunk in an attack on a convoy during the Atlantic sortie, for instance. At this point, I'd rate them about the same as Siegfried Breyer - acceptable enough to use in the absence of anything else, but sloppy enough that if someone else contradicts them, they're probably wrong. Parsecboy (talk) 17:05, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

Well that's disappointing. I own all three. ;-) Thanks for letting me know, I'll keep that in mind for the future. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 05:07, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

Could you do the edit when you have time? The reference for the book that I mentioned would be: Giuseppe Fioravanzo, La Marina italiana nella seconda guerra mondiale - Volume XV - La Marina dall'8 settembre 1943 alla fine del conflitto, Rome, 1971, Italian Navy Historical Branch, pages 8 to 34. --Olonia (talk) 22:17, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

I have done some edits. Any opinion? --Olonia (talk) 14:18, 10 September 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, I didn't have time to get to it over the weekend. It looks fine to me - I went and cleaned up the citations (and some other unrelated stuff) - do you want to check the translated title I added? I have a somewhat loose grasp of romance languages (primarily by way of French) so I'm not entirely sure of its accuracy. Parsecboy (talk) 13:55, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

Hello, the translation is correct. --Olonia (talk) 18:47, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

Good, thanks. Parsecboy (talk) 19:03, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

Hey, it strikes me that you might be able to help out here (though I don't know if your area of interest extends to World War I). Parsecboy (talk) 19:04, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

My interest does extend to WWI to a lesser extent, but unfortunately I don't know the answer about that question, sorry. --Olonia (talk) 13:43, 12 September 2017 (UTC)