Figure 1: A stamp printed in Italy circa 1980 shows the Regia Marina (Royal Italian Navy) corvette Gabbiano (C11) as part of a series of stamps devoted to ships. Gabbiano was the namesake of a 59-ship class of corvettes built in Italy during World War II for the Italian Navy. Even though the entire class was named after Gabbiano, few (if any) photographs exist of the actual warship. Fortunately, there are a number of photographs of her sister ships which served during World War II. All of the ships in this class were basically armed the same way and all of them looked the same. Photograph courtesy BrandonHot / Shutterstock.com. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 2: Extremely rare color photograph of Driade (C43), sister ship to Gabbiano. Driade was commissioned in January 1943, survived the war, and remained in the Italian Navy until decommissioned in 1966. Italian Navy Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 3: Launching of Procellaria (C12) at the Cerusa Shipyard in Voltri, Italy, on 4 September 1942. Procellaria was a sister ship to Gabbiano and was built at the same shipyard at roughly the same time. Procellaria was commissioned on 29 November 1942 but was sunk by mines off the west coast of Sicily on 31 January 1943. Italian Navy Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 4: The fully commissioned Procellaria (C12) just before she was sunk on 31 January 1943. Italian Navy photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 5: Sfinge (C47), another sister ship to Gabbiano, was commissioned in May 1943, survived the war, and remained in the Italian Navy until decommissioned in 1976. Italian Navy photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 6: Ship’s drawings of the Gabbiano class corvette. Italian Navy photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 7: Chimera (C48), another sister ship to Gabbiano, was commissioned in May 1943, survived the war, and remained in the Italian Navy until decommissioned in 1977. Italian Navy photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 8: Danaide (C44), another sister ship to Gabbiano, was commissioned in February 1943, survived the war, and remained in the Italian Navy until decommissioned in 1969. Italian Navy photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 9: Euterpe (C41), another sister ship to Gabbiano, was commissioned in January 1943 but was scuttled towards the end of the war in Genoa in April 1945. Italian Navy photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 10: Good stern view of Fenice (C50), another sister ship to Gabbiano. The ship was commissioned in June 1943, survived the war, and was decommissioned in 1965. Italian Navy photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 11: Flora (C46), another sister ship to Gabbiano, was commissioned in April 1943, survived the war, and was decommissioned in 1970. Italian Navy photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 12: Gazella (C20), another sister ship to Gabbiano, was commissioned in February 1943 but was sunk by mines north of Sardinia on 5 August 1943. Italian Navy photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 13: A stern view of Urania (C65), another sister ship to Gabbiano. The ship was commissioned in June 1943, survived the war, and was decommissioned in 1972. Italian Navy photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 14: The shattered hulk of Tersicore (C69), another sister ship to Gabbiano. The ship was never completed and was captured by the German Army in September 1943. The ship was sunk by Allied aircraft on 20 April 1944 in the northern Italian port of Monfalcone in the Gulf of Trieste. Italian Navy photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
The 728-ton Gabbiano (which means “seagull” in Italian) was the namesake and lead ship of a class of 59 corvettes built for the Regia Marina (the Royal Italian Navy) during World War II. Gabbiano was built by the Cerusa Shipyard at Voltri, Italy, and was commissioned on 3 October 1942. The ship was approximately 211 feet long and 28 feet wide, had a top speed of 18 knots, and had a crew of 110 officers and men. Gabbiano was armed with one 3.9-inch gun, seven 20-mm guns, two 18-inch torpedo tubes, 10 depth-charge throwers and two depth-charge racks. Although Gabbiano did not have radar, it did possess sonar.
By 1941, Axis convoys in the Mediterranean were suffering severe losses to British submarines. The Italian Navy needed to counter this deadly menace, so it designed the Gabbiano class corvettes to escort merchant and troop convoys steaming between Italy and North Africa. Gabbiano featured some innovative and highly effective characteristics for a ship her size. Unlike the British convoy escorts that had to deal with the terrible North Atlantic weather, Italian escorts faced much milder weather in the Mediterranean. As a result, Gabbiano could be longer and narrower than her British counterparts of the Flower class, making them faster. Gabbiano also had a longer forecastle and a higher freeboard that the British corvettes lacked, keeping them drier in heavy seas. Gabbiano had excellent range (she could steam 3,000 nautical miles at 15 knots) and was a tough ship, with her hull made of high-strength steel and her upper structure made of light aluminum alloys. The Gabbiano class’ simple design allowed the ships to be built quickly and in several different shipyards.
But what made Gabbiano and her sisters unique were their engines. Her main engines were diesels that used a light diesel fuel and not fuel oil found in conventional steam engines. Therefore, her engines didn’t need water which allowed them to be started right away. Gabbiano could start her main engines in 10 minutes because of this feature. Gabbiano also possessed an additional electric motor that had an endurance of 16 nautical miles at 6 knots for silent running while searching for submarines. This electric motor allowed the ship to “creep” quietly along the surface while hunting for a submarine. This not only made it more difficult for the enemy submarine’s sonar to locate Gabbiano, but it also reduced Gabbiano’s engine noise which interfered with its own sonar.
As soon as Gabbiano was commissioned in October 1942, she was assigned to convoy escort duty. Gabbiano escorted numerous convoys that brought urgently needed troops and supplies from Italy to Tunisia. On the return trips, those same convoys brought thousands of wounded troops from Tunisia back to Italy. These convoys were repeatedly attacked by Allied aircraft and British submarines, which exacted a heavy toll on the merchant ships within the convoys.
But Gabbiano did its best to fight back against the Allied attacks. While escorting a convoy on 16 April 1943, Gabbiano attacked and probably sank the British submarine HMS Regent. Some reports state that Regent was chased from the area and was actually sunk by a mine, but other reports have the submarine sunk by Gabbiano. Either way, Gabbiano assisted in the sinking of Regent. On 24 April, Gabbiano attacked another British submarine, HMS Sahib, near the Lipari Islands off the coast of Italy. The submarine was so damaged by the attack that it was eventually forced to surface and was later sunk by German aircraft.
Although 59 Gabbiano class corvettes were ordered by Italy during the war, only 28 ships entered service before Italy surrendered in September 1943. Several were sunk before the armistice in 1943, but 19 ships survived and were used by Italy after the war ended for that country. Ironically, a few ships were even captured and used by the Germans who were still fighting in northern Italy after the armistice was signed. Gabbiano was one of the ships that remained in Italian possession and she formed the nucleus of the new Italian Navy after the war ended in Europe in May, 1945.
Gabbiano proved to be a tough and durable warship. After the war she was used as a training ship, for search-and-rescue duties, for hydrographic assignments, and for general patrol duties. Gabbiano was decommissioned in 1972, 30 years after she was commissioned. The surviving members of the Gabbiano class proved equally as durable, with the last ships being retired towards the end of the 1970s.
Gabbiano and her sisters proved to be some of the best convoy escorts of World War II. Many of them even had successful careers in the post-war Italian Navy. Unfortunately for the Italians, they could not be built in large enough numbers to have much of an effect on the war in the Mediterranean.
Author’s Note: Information on the Gabbiano class was collected from several sources. Many of these sources contradict each other, so decisions had to be made on selecting the best sources that gave the most accurate information regarding Gabbiano and her sister ships. For further reading regarding these warships, some recommended sources are:
Regia Marina Italiana Corvette, by Salvatore Romano, which can be found here: http://www.regiamarina.net/detail_text_with_list.asp?nid=76&lid=1
Destroyers, Frigates, and Corvettes, by Robert Jackson, Barnes & Noble Books, 2000, p. 179.
Warships 1900-1950, Gabbiano Class Corvettes: http://www.warshipsww2.eu/lode.php?language=E&idtrida=439
Melpomene and Spingarda - Gabbiano class corvette: http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=152361124820414
HMS REGENT (41 R) - R-class Submarine (regarding Regent being sunk by Gabbiano): http://www.naval-history.net/xGM-Chrono-12SS-03R-Regent.htm
