WWI Italian history

Cathy · V.I.P. Joined: Jul 10, 2007 Posts: 2681

I have military information that several soldiers (in my town and family) died on June 8, 1916 during WWI due to a sinking ship. So, I am very curious and would like to know more. I plugged the date into several search engines (in english) and could not find anything. Does anyone know where I can go to find out more? Thanks.

liviomoreno · Posted: Thu Sep 13, 2007 1:57 am Post subject: Re: WWI Italian history

Cathy wrote:

I have military information that several soldiers (in my town and family) died on June 8, 1916 during WWI due to a sinking ship. So, I am very curious and would like to know more. I plugged the date into several search engines (in english) and could not find anything. Does anyone know where I can go to find out more? Thanks.

I think that the ship is the "Principe Umberto". Try this link:

Caduti della prima guerra mondiale

This is a picture of the ship.

Biff83 · V.I.P. Joined: Jul 10, 2007 Posts: 1263 Location: Florida

Cathy,

Some more information on the Principe Umberto, originally a passenger ship converted to a troop transport.

Principe Umberto
Steamship Line: Navagazione Generale Italiana
Built: Cantieri Navali Riuniti, Palermo, Italy
Year Built: 1909
Routes: Italy-South America; Italy-NY
History: Mainly on Italy-South America routes. Torpedoed and sunk in 1916.
Machinery: Twin-screw, 16 knots
Masts and funnels: 2 masts, 2 funnels

From wiki
Austrian submarines sank or damaged a number of ships in 1916. U-11 captured the Italian hospital ship King Albert on January 18 at San Giovanni di Medua. U-6 sank the French destroyer Renaudin on March 16 at Durazzo. On June 8 U-5 torpedoed and sank the Italian troop transport Principe Umberto at Linguetta.* Later U-5 fought a French-Italian destroyer group to a stalemate on August 2, and torpedoed the Italian Q-Ship Pantelleria south of Taranto on August 14.

*Map showing location of Linguetta

Biff

Cathy · V.I.P. Joined: Jul 10, 2007 Posts: 2681

Thank you gentlemen! That was most helpful. I spent hours looking and came up with nothing. I was able to learn a lot here www.worldwar1.com/itaf.../index.htm
just in case anyone is interested. Nothing about the ship there but a lot about the Italian front and battles of WWI.
Thanks so much for your help.

Biff83 · V.I.P. Joined: Jul 10, 2007 Posts: 1263 Location: Florida

Cathy,

In doing some additional checking I discovered that the correct designation of the submarine which torpedoed the Principe Umberto was the SMU-5 captained by George Ritter von Trapp. If his name is familiar that's because he is the same von Trapp from the Sound of Music.

www.istrianet.org/istr.../index.htm

Biff

Cathy · V.I.P. Joined: Jul 10, 2007 Posts: 2681

WOW! Thanks again Biff. Very interesting. Call me a geek, but I love history. I think it gives you a better idea as to what their lives were like. These poor men - what a horrible way to die. I never realized how brutal this war was.

Cathy · V.I.P. Joined: Jul 10, 2007 Posts: 2681

liviomoreno wrote:

Cathy wrote:

I have military information that several soldiers (in my town and family) died on June 8, 1916 during WWI due to a sinking ship. So, I am very curious and would like to know more. I plugged the date into several search engines (in english) and could not find anything. Does anyone know where I can go to find out more? Thanks.

I think that the ship is the "Principe Umberto". Try this link:

Caduti della prima guerra mondiale

This is a picture of the ship.

Livio - forgive me, but I speak very little Italian. I want to make sure I am not misunderstanding - the page with the picture of the ship - I understand it says something about 64 persons - is that a figure of how many survived or died on this ship? Thanks.

liviomoreno · Posted: Thu Sep 13, 2007 1:48 pm Post subject: Re: WWI Italian history

Cathy wrote:

liviomoreno wrote:

Cathy wrote:

I have military information that several soldiers (in my town and family) died on June 8, 1916 during WWI due to a sinking ship. So, I am very curious and would like to know more. I plugged the date into several search engines (in english) and could not find anything. Does anyone know where I can go to find out more? Thanks.

I think that the ship is the "Principe Umberto". Try this link:

Caduti della prima guerra mondiale

This is a picture of the ship.

Livio - forgive me, but I speak very little Italian. I want to make sure I am not misunderstanding - the page with the picture of the ship - I understand it says something about 64 persons - is that a figure of how many survived or died on this ship? Thanks.

64 is the number of people that lost their life.

Cathy · V.I.P. Joined: Jul 10, 2007 Posts: 2681

Thank you again.

Cathy · V.I.P. Joined: Jul 10, 2007 Posts: 2681

Biff83 wrote:

Cathy,

In doing some additional checking I discovered that the correct designation of the submarine which torpedoed the Principe Umberto was the SMU-5 captained by George Ritter von Trapp. If his name is familiar that's because he is the same von Trapp from the Sound of Music.

www.istrianet.org/istr.../index.htm

Biff

The Dad from The Sound of Music killed my relatives?! Shocked

Biff83 · V.I.P. Joined: Jul 10, 2007 Posts: 1263 Location: Florida

Cathy wrote:

The Dad from The Sound of Music killed my relatives?! Shocked

Yep.

According to the information on the Austrailian Royal Navy's site, approximately 2000 lost their lives in the sinking.

Austro-Hungarian ships. Von Trapp became one of the first submarine captains to attack shipping at night. A little after midnight of 26/27 April 1915, while in the Straits of Otranto, the French Armoured Class Cruiser Leon Gambetta was sighted. Von Trapp watched as both detonated sending the 12,500 ton cruiser to the bottom with a loss of 684 officers and sailors from a crew of 821. Von Trapp also sunk the Italian Troop Transport ship Principe Umberto, drowning 2000 soldiers.

www.navy.gov.au/public...edoes.html

Biff

Cathy · V.I.P. Joined: Jul 10, 2007 Posts: 2681

Well now, there's a story to tell the family! Very interesting....

Cathy · V.I.P. Joined: Jul 10, 2007 Posts: 2681

Now I need your opinions. So I have a list of all men born in Montalto Uffugo and San Fili who died in WWI. I have their names, most of their father’s names, date of birth, date of death (or MIA date) and in most cases, where and why they died. I want to put this information on my website. I put it all into an Excel spreadsheet but it is too wide for a webpage in that format. So, my question is, if your family were from my grandfather’s town, how would you like to see all this information presented? Since many of them died on the same battlefields, I thought it would be nice to put their names together and tell a little something about the battles that took place where they died. Or, I could present just the facts, in alphabetical order. Any other ideas? What do you think?

By the way, I have purchased 2 domains : calabriangenealogy.com and montaltouffugo.net. The 2 sites will be separate. I hope to have the sites ready by Christmas. No more easy googlepages soon! What was I thinking?! So, you know I will be asking about html, xt whatever and css soon! So if you have any constructive criticism of my site, now would be the time!

nuccia · Posted: Fri Sep 14, 2007 5:08 pm Post subject: Re: WWI Italian history

Cathy..I changed the website addresses slightly so they would link properly.

See you have been playing with it a bit. Good for you! Wink

Cathy · V.I.P. Joined: Jul 10, 2007 Posts: 2681

Sorry Nuccia! I changed them back hide

I don't want them linked until they are ready.