Italian submarine fates

Ships hit by Italian submarines

Type	Cargo ship
Country	British
Built	1930	GRT	7,516

Date of attack	12 Aug 1942	Time	1938 1956 or 2058? (e)
Fate	Damaged? by submarine Dessiè (T.V. Renato Scandola)
Position of attack	37° 38'N, 10° 25'E
Complement
Convoy	PEDESTAL
Notes	At 1900 hours, the smokes of the convoy were sighted on the horizon. Ten minutes later, fourteen merchant ships and ten destroyers could be counted. They were steering 110° at 14 knots. At 1938 hours, four torpedoes (533mm) were fired at 3-second intervals from the bow tubes, at a distance of 1,800 metres. After 100 seconds, two hits were heard. Between 1956 and 2127 hours, Dessié was hunted and escaped to a depth of 90 metres; 120 depth charges were counted, but none were near enough to cause damage. There was no opportunity for an attack with the stern tubes as it was hoped. There is no absolute certainty that Dessié hit anything with this salvo. With the confusion surrounding the PEDESTAL convoy battle, anything is possible. Some accounts credit her with hitting *Deucalion* (7,516 GRT, built 1930) but she was near-missed at 1315 hours by a bomb and damaged. Later, she was hit by a torpedo bomber and sunk at 2120 hours in 270° - Cani Rocks - 5 miles. *Brisbane Star* is also reported to have been torpedoed by aircraft at 2058 hours. Was she damaged earlier? At 2212 hours, Dessié surfaced and witnessed two vessels on fire.