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Imperial Austro-Hungary:
The launch of the ill-fated battleship Szent István at the Ganz-Danubius shipyard of Fiume, 17 January 1914
The SMS Szent István was one of the four Tegetthoff-class dreadnought battleships built for the k.u.k. Kriegsmarine; because of the dual nature of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, in exchange of approving the budget for these ships the Hungarian delegates in the parliament obtained that the fourth ship would be built in an Hungarian shipyard. As the Hungarian Kingdom had only a small stretch of a coastline, a small shipyard (located at Fiume, today Rijeka in Croatia) that so far had not built anything larger than a destroyer was tasked with building a first-class battleship; a decision that would likely have negative implications.
Launched on 17 January 1914, the battleship was not commissioned until December 1915, becoming part of the 1st Battleship Division together with her three sister ships. Neither she or her sister, however, saw any activity for many months, remaining moored at the naval base of Pola (today Pula, Croatia) if not for sporadic exercises in the nearby Canale di Fasana.
This would change when in 1918 the new commander-in-chief of the Austro-Hungarian fleet, Admiral Miklós Horthy, planned a large-scale operation against the Otranto barrage, that involved even the large capital ships that had been until then pretty much unused. On the evening of 9 June 1918, the Szent István and her sister ship Tegetthoff sortied from Pola, following their two sisters that had sailed before, and made for a position north of Ragusa (Dubrovnik); a comical delay in exiting (the anti-torpedo barriers had not been timely moved out of the way) meant that the formation increased speed to make up for time lost, making a lot of smoke.
At 0315h of 10 June, two Italian MAS boats commanded by Capitano di Corvetta Luigi Rizzo, during a routine patrol in the middle of the Adriatic Sea, spotted the smoke and investigated; seeing the enemy naval formation, Rizzo decided to attack each of the battleship. He himself, aboard MAS 15, went for the Szent István, and at 0325h fired two torpedoes, with both hitting the target; her fellow boat, MAS 21, attacked the Tegetthoff and hit her with one torpedo, a dud however. Both crafts then evaded pursuit by the Austro-Hungarian escorts and returned to their home port of Ancona celebrating their success.
Although at first her captain hoped to bring his ship to beach, in a while it soon became clear that the ship was doomed. Flooding continued to spread, with the bulkheads failing to contain it (it seems partly out of a flawed design, partly because of poor workmanship), and efforts to take her under tow failed. As the Szent István took on a worsening list, the crew assembled on deck and eventually abandoned ship; the battleship capsized and sank off the island of Premuda at 0612h. The long time elapsed since her first torpedoing and the swimming training of the k.u.k. Kriegsmarine meant that the death toll was low - only 89 men died in the sinking.
The sinking of the Szent István led to the Austro-Hungarian operation being aborted, and was celebrated in Italy as a major victory; to this day, 10 June is the "Navy Day" (Festa della Marina) in Italy.
As on the Tegetthoff there was a film crew, they filmed the Szent István's final moments and sinking, that immortalized the event for posterity.
The launch of the ill-fated battleship Szent István at the Ganz-Danubius shipyard of Fiume, 17 January 1914
The SMS Szent István was one of the four Tegetthoff-class dreadnought battleships built for the k.u.k. Kriegsmarine; because of the dual nature of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, in exchange of approving the budget for these ships the Hungarian delegates in the parliament obtained that the fourth ship would be built in an Hungarian shipyard. As the Hungarian Kingdom had only a small stretch of a coastline, a small shipyard (located at Fiume, today Rijeka in Croatia) that so far had not built anything larger than a destroyer was tasked with building a first-class battleship; a decision that would likely have negative implications.
Launched on 17 January 1914, the battleship was not commissioned until December 1915, becoming part of the 1st Battleship Division together with her three sister ships. Neither she or her sister, however, saw any activity for many months, remaining moored at the naval base of Pola (today Pula, Croatia) if not for sporadic exercises in the nearby Canale di Fasana.
This would change when in 1918 the new commander-in-chief of the Austro-Hungarian fleet, Admiral Miklós Horthy, planned a large-scale operation against the Otranto barrage, that involved even the large capital ships that had been until then pretty much unused. On the evening of 9 June 1918, the Szent István and her sister ship Tegetthoff sortied from Pola, following their two sisters that had sailed before, and made for a position north of Ragusa (Dubrovnik); a comical delay in exiting (the anti-torpedo barriers had not been timely moved out of the way) meant that the formation increased speed to make up for time lost, making a lot of smoke.
At 0315h of 10 June, two Italian MAS boats commanded by Capitano di Corvetta Luigi Rizzo, during a routine patrol in the middle of the Adriatic Sea, spotted the smoke and investigated; seeing the enemy naval formation, Rizzo decided to attack each of the battleship. He himself, aboard MAS 15, went for the Szent István, and at 0325h fired two torpedoes, with both hitting the target; her fellow boat, MAS 21, attacked the Tegetthoff and hit her with one torpedo, a dud however. Both crafts then evaded pursuit by the Austro-Hungarian escorts and returned to their home port of Ancona celebrating their success.
Although at first her captain hoped to bring his ship to beach, in a while it soon became clear that the ship was doomed. Flooding continued to spread, with the bulkheads failing to contain it (it seems partly out of a flawed design, partly because of poor workmanship), and efforts to take her under tow failed. As the Szent István took on a worsening list, the crew assembled on deck and eventually abandoned ship; the battleship capsized and sank off the island of Premuda at 0612h. The long time elapsed since her first torpedoing and the swimming training of the k.u.k. Kriegsmarine meant that the death toll was low - only 89 men died in the sinking.
The sinking of the Szent István led to the Austro-Hungarian operation being aborted, and was celebrated in Italy as a major victory; to this day, 10 June is the "Navy Day" (Festa della Marina) in Italy.
As on the Tegetthoff there was a film crew, they filmed the Szent István's final moments and sinking, that immortalized the event for posterity.
