T1 was a seagoing torpedo boat that was operated by the Royal Yugoslav Navy between 1921 and 1941. Originally 76 T, a 250t-class torpedo boat of the Austro-Hungarian Navy built in 1914, she was armed with two  guns and four  torpedo tubes, and could carry 10–12 naval mines. She saw active service during World War I, performing convoy, escort and minesweeping tasks, anti-submarine operations and shore bombardment missions. In 1917 the suffixes of all Austro-Hungarian torpedo boats were removed, and thereafter she was referred to as 76. She was part of the escort force for the Austro-Hungarian dreadnought  during the action that resulted in the sinking of that ship by Italian torpedo boats in June 1918. Following Austria-Hungary's defeat later that year, she was allocated to the Navy of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, which became the Royal Yugoslav Navy, and was renamed T1. At the time, she and seven other 250t-class boats were the only modern sea-going vessels of the fledgling maritime force.

During the interwar period, T7 and the rest of the navy were involved in training exercises and cruises to friendly ports, but activity was limited by reduced naval budgets. This ship was captured by the Italians during the German-led Axis invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941. After her main armament was modernised, she served with the Royal Italian Navy under her Yugoslav designation. Following the Italian capitulation in September 1943, she was returned to the Royal Yugoslav Navy-in-exile. She was commissioned by the Yugoslav Navy after World War II, and after a refit which included replacement of her armament, she served as Golešnica until 1959.

Background
In 1910, the Austria-Hungary Naval Technical Committee initiated the design and development of a  coastal torpedo boat, specifying that it should be capable of sustaining  for 10 hours. This specification was based an expectation that the Strait of Otranto, where the Adriatic Sea meets the Ionian Sea, would be blockaded by hostile forces during a future conflict. In such circumstances, there would be a need for a torpedo boat that could sail from the Austro-Hungarian Navy () base at the Bocche di Cattaro (Bay of Kotor) to the Strait during darkness, locate and attack blockading ships and return to port before morning. Steam turbine power was selected for propulsion, as diesels with the necessary power were not available, and the Austro-Hungarian Navy did not have the practical experience to run turbo-electric boats. Stabilimento Tecnico Triestino (STT) of Triest was selected for the contract to build eight vessels, ahead of one other tenderer. The T-group designation signified that they were built at Triest.

Description and construction
The , T-group boats had short raised forecastles and an open bridge, and were fast and agile, well designed for service in the Adriatic. They had a waterline length of , a beam of , and a normal draught of . While their designed displacement was , they displaced about  fully loaded. The crew consisted of three officers and thirty-eight enlisted men. The boats were powered by two Parsons steam turbines driving two propellers, using steam generated by two Yarrow water-tube boilers, one of which burned fuel oil and the other coal. There were two boiler rooms, one behind the other. The turbines were rated at  and designed to propel the boats to a top speed of , although a maximum speed of  could be achieved. They carried  of coal and  of fuel oil, which gave them a range of  at . The T-group had one funnel rather than the two funnels of the later groups of the class, and had a large ventilation cowl under the bridge and another smaller one aft of the funnel. Due to an inadequate budget, 76 T and the rest of the 250t class were essentially large coastal vessels, despite the original intention that they would be used for "high seas" operations. They were the first small Austro-Hungarian Navy boats to use turbines, and this contributed to ongoing problems with them, which had to be progressively solved once they were in service.

The boats were originally to be armed with three Škoda  L/30 guns, and three  torpedo tubes, but this was changed to two guns and four torpedo tubes before the first boat was completed, to standardise the armament with the F-group to follow. The torpedo tubes were mounted in pairs, with one pair mounted between the forecastle and bridge, and the other on a section of raised superstructure above the aft machinery room. They could also carry 10–12 naval mines. The third of its class to be completed, 76 T was laid down on 24 June 1913, launched on 15 December 1913 and completed on 20 July 1914. Later that year, one  machine gun was added.

Career

World War I
At the outbreak of World War I, 76 T was part of the 1st Torpedo Group of the 3rd Torpedo Craft Division of the Austro-Hungarian 1st Torpedo Craft Flotilla. The original concept of operation for the 250t-class boats was that they would sail in a flotilla at the rear of a cruising battle formation, and were to intervene in fighting only if the battleships around which the formation was established were disabled, or in order to attack damaged enemy battleships. When a torpedo attack was ordered, it was to be led by a scout cruiser, supported by two destroyers to repel any enemy torpedo boats. A group of four to six torpedo boats would deliver the attack under the direction of the flotilla commander.

During the war, 76 T was used for convoy, escort and minesweeping tasks, anti-submarine operations, and shore bombardment missions. She also conducted patrols and supported seaplane raids against the Italian coast. On 24 May 1915, 76 T and seven other 250t-class boats were involved in the shelling of various Italian shore-based targets known as the Bombardment of Ancona, with 76 T involved in the operation against Ancona itself. On 27 July, a flotilla led by the scout cruisers  and , and escorted by two destroyers along with 76 T and two other 250t-class boats shelled the Italian railway line between Ancona and Pesaro. In late November 1915, the Austro-Hungarian fleet deployed a force from its main fleet base at Pola to Cattaro in the southern Adriatic; this force included six of the eight T-group torpedo boats, so it is possible that one of these was 76 T. This force was tasked to maintain a permanent patrol of the Albanian coastline and interdict any troop transports crossing from Italy.

On 22 February 1916, 76 T, the  70 F and two other 250t-class boats laid a defensive minefield off the port of Antivari. On 3 May, 76 T and five other 250t-class boats were accompanying four destroyers when they were involved in a surface action off Porto Corsini, near Ravenna, against an Italian force led by the flotilla leaders Cesare Rossarol and Guglielmo Pepe. On this occasion the Austro-Hungarian force retreated behind a minefield with no damage to the torpedo boats, and only splinter damage to the  . In 1917, one of 76 Ts 66 mm guns was placed on an anti-aircraft mount. On 21 May 1917, the suffix of all Austro-Hungarian torpedo boats was removed, and thereafter they were referred to only by the numeral. In June and July, Austro-Hungarian aircraft were constantly in action bombing various targets along the east coast of Italy. On a twenty-one seaplane raid targeting the harbour at Grado between Venice and Triest, and the main railway hub in the same area at Cervignano, 76 was part of the covering force which also included three destroyers and three other 250t-class boats. One of the destroyers was targeted by an enemy submarine, but evaded the torpedo.     

By 1918, the Allies had strengthened their ongoing blockade on the Strait of Otranto, as foreseen by the Austro-Hungarian Navy. As a result, it was becoming more difficult for the German and Austro-Hungarian U-boats to get through the strait and into the Mediterranean Sea. In response to these blockades, the new commander of the Austro-Hungarian Navy, Konteradmiral Miklós Horthy, decided to launch an attack on the Allied defenders with battleships, scout cruisers, and destroyers. During the night of 8 June, Horthy left the naval base of Pola in the upper Adriatic with the dreadnought battleships  and . At about 23:00 on 9 June 1918, after some difficulties getting the harbour defence barrage opened, the dreadnoughts  and , escorted by one destroyer and six torpedo boats, including 76, also departed Pola and set course for Slano, north of Ragusa, to rendezvous with Horthy in preparation for a coordinated attack on the Otranto Barrage. About 03:15 on 10 June, while returning from an uneventful patrol off the Dalmatian coast, two Italian Navy () MAS boats, MAS 15 and MAS 21, spotted the smoke from the Austrian ships. Both boats successfully penetrated the escort screen and split to engage the dreadnoughts individually. MAS 21 attacked Tegetthoff, but her torpedoes missed. The crew of 76 did not sight the MAS boats until they had launched their torpedoes. Under the command of Luigi Rizzo, MAS 15 fired two torpedoes at 03:25, both of which hit Szent István. Both boats evaded pursuit although Rizzo had to discourage 76 by dropping depth charges in his wake. The torpedo hits on Szent István were abreast her boiler rooms, which flooded, knocking out power to the pumps. Szent István capsized less than three hours after being torpedoed. This disaster practically ended Austro-Hungarian fleet operations in the Adriatic for the remaining months of the war.

Interwar period
The Austro-Hungarian Empire sued for peace in November 1918, and 76 survived the war intact. In 1920, under the terms of the previous year's Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, by which rump Austria officially ended World War I, she was allocated to the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (KSCS, later Yugoslavia). Along with three other 250t-class T-group boats, 77, 78 and 79, and four 250t-class F-group boats, she served with the Royal Yugoslav Navy (, KM; Краљевска Морнарица). Taken over in March 1921, in KM service, 76 was renamed T1. When the navy was formed, she and the other seven 250t-class boats were the only modern sea-going vessels in the KM. During the French occupation of Cattaro, the original torpedo tubes were destroyed or damaged, and new ones of the same size were ordered from the Strojne Tovarne factory in Ljubljana. In KM service it was intended to replace one or both guns on each boat of the 250t class with a longer Škoda  L/45 gun, and it is believed that this included the forward gun on T1. She was also fitted with one or two Zbrojovka  machine guns. In KM service, the crew increased to 52, and she was commissioned in 1923.

In 1925, exercises were conducted off the Dalmatian coast, involving the majority of the navy. T1 underwent a refit in 1927. In May and June 1929, six of the eight 250t-class torpedo boats accompanied the light cruiser Dalmacija, the submarine tender Hvar and the submarines  and , on a cruise to Malta, the Greek island of Corfu in the Ionian Sea, and Bizerte in the French protectorate of Tunisia. The ships and crews made a very good impression while visiting Malta. In 1932, the British naval attaché reported that Yugoslav ships engaged in few exercises, manoeuvres or gunnery training due to reduced budgets. By 1939, the maximum speed achieved by the 250t class in Yugoslav service had declined to .

World War II and post-war service
In April 1941, Yugoslavia entered World War II when it was invaded by the German-led Axis powers. At the time of the invasion, T1 was assigned to the Southern Sector of the KM's Coastal Defence Command based at the Bay of Kotor, along with her sister ship T3 and a number of minesweepers and other craft. T1 was part of the 3rd Torpedo Division, but was left at Kotor when the rest of the division was deployed to the central Dalmatian port of Šibenik just prior to the invasion, in accordance with a plan to attack the Italian enclave of Zara in northern Dalmatia. T1 was captured by the Italian Navy shortly after the commencement of hostilities and was operated by them under her Yugoslav designation, conducting coastal and second-line escort duties in the Adriatic. Her guns were replaced by two  L/40 anti-aircraft guns, and her bridge was enclosed. She was allocated to Maridalmazia, the military maritime command of Dalmatia (), which was responsible for the area from the northern Adriatic island of Premuda south to the port of Bar in the Italian governorate of Montenegro. On 21 January 1943, T1 was escorting the steamer Cassala near Cape Menders (current day Cape Mendra near Ulcinj, Montenegro, then part of the Italian protectorate of Albania) when they were attacked by the British submarine . Tigris fired four torpedoes but missed both ships.

After the Italians capitulated in September 1943, she was returned by them to the KM-in-exile in December 1943. She was commissioned by the Yugoslav Navy (, Југословенска Pатна Mорнарица) after the war, serving as Golešnica. Her post-war fit-out included replacing her guns with two  guns on single mounts and four  guns, and removing her torpedo tubes. She continued in Yugoslav service as a guard ship until October 1959. After being decommissioned and disarmed, she was sunk as a target and is now a recreational dive site.

See also
 List of ships of the Royal Yugoslav Navy
 List of ships of the Yugoslav Navy

Notes

Footnotes

References

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Torpedo boats of the Austro-Hungarian Navy
Torpedo boats of the Royal Yugoslav Navy
World War I torpedo boats of Austria-Hungary
World War II naval ships of Yugoslavia
Naval ships of Yugoslavia captured by Italy during World War II
1913 ships
Ships built in Trieste