Italian Battleship Impero
The Impero was an Italian Vittorio Veneto-class battleship built for Italy's Regia Marina during the Second World War. She was the fourth ship of her class and was named after the Italian word for "empire," in this case referring to the newly (1936) conquered Italian Empire in East Africa (Somaliland, Eritrea and Ethiopia territories) as a result of the Second Italo-Abyssinian War. She was constructed under the order of the 1938 Naval Expansion Program, along with her sister ship Roma.
Had she been completed with her projected displacement of 46,215 tons and length of 240.7 meters, the Impero would have been slightly larger than two of her three sisters: the Vittorio Veneto, the Littorio. The Roma, launched a year later, was also constructed under to the 1938 Naval Expansion Program, and thus had the same characteristics as Impero.
After Italy surrendered to the Allies on September 8, 1943, the rest of the Italian Navy steamed to Sardinia to rendezvous with their American contemporaries. Impero was still incomplete in Trieste and was captured by the Germans. Sunk by Allied bombers in February 1945, she was refloated in 1947 and scrapped in Venice from 1948 to 1950.
Read more about Italian Battleship Impero: Background, Design, History
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“The French courage proceeds from vanity—the German from phlegm—the Turkish from fanaticism & opium—the Spanish from pride—the English from coolness—the Dutch from obstinacy—the Russian from insensibility—but the Italian from anger.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)