page_title: Italian battleship Caio Duilio
section_title: Later service
hierarchical_section_title: Italian battleship Caio Duilio / Service history / Later service
caption_attribution_description: The Italian battleship Caio Duilio surrendering at Malta on 9 September 1943.
context_page_description: Caio Duilio was an Italian Andrea Doria-class battleship that served in the Regia Marina during World War I and World War II. She was named after the Roman fleet commander Gaius Duilius. Caio Duilio was laid down in February 1912, launched in April 1913, and completed in May 1916. She was initially armed with a main battery of thirteen 305 mm guns, but a major reconstruction in the late 1930s replaced these with ten 320 mm guns. Caio Duilio saw no action during World War I owing to the inactivity of the Austro-Hungarian fleet during the conflict. She cruised the Mediterranean in the 1920s and was involved in the Corfu incident in 1923.
  During World War II, she participated in numerous patrols and sorties into the Mediterranean, both to escort Italian convoys to North Africa and in attempts to catch the British Mediterranean Fleet. In November 1940, the British launched an air raid on Taranto; Caio Duilio was hit by one torpedo launched by a Fairey Swordfish torpedo bomber, which caused significant damage. Repairs lasted some five months, after which the ship returned to convoy escort duties.
context_section_description: Caio Duilio, now the flagship of the Italian fleet, sailed on 29 November to cover an Italian convoy to North Africa. She was escorted by the cruiser Giuseppe Garibaldi and six destroyers. She sailed again on 13 December, to cover the convoy M41; the Italian fleet was forced to break off the convoy escort after Vittorio Veneto was torpedoed. Caio Duilio returned to port on the 14th, and departed to cover the convoy M42 two days later. She was stationed south of Messina with three cruisers and four destroyers. During the convoy operation, British forces attacked, resulting in the First Battle of Sirte, but Caio Duilio's group was too far away to engage the Royal Navy. She returned to Taranto on 19 December. She escorted convoy M43 on 3–6 January 1942, which successfully reached Tripoli unmolested. Convoy T18 followed on 22–5 January, and four of the five transports in the convoy reached Tripoli.
  Caio Duilio's next operation was a sortie against the British convoy MW 9 bounded from Alexandria to Malta in February. She departed from Taranto on 14 February with a pair of light cruisers and seven destroyers, but the force could not locate the British ships, and so returned to port. Her mere presence at sea, however, forced the British escort to scuttle the transport Rowallan Castle, previously disabled by German aircraft. On the 21st, she escorted the convoy K7 from Messina and Corfu to Taranto. By this point in 1942, the Italian fleet began to suffer a severe shortage of fuel, which curtailed its operations. The situation was so bad that Caio Duilio had to be placed in reserve and drained of fuel, in order to keep the escort craft operational. She was at Taranto when Italy surrendered to the Allies in September 1943, and on 9 September she was taken to Malta, where she was interned with the rest of the Italian fleet. In June 1944, the Allies allowed Caio Duilio to return to Italian ports; she spent the rest of the war in Taranto, Syracuse, and Augusta.
  She survived the war, and continued to serve in the Italian navy; she was the fleet flagship from 1 May 1947 until 10 November 1949, based in Taranto. She was moved to La Spezia in 1953 and removed from active service. Caio Duilio remained there until she was stricken from the naval register on 15 September 1956. She was sold for scrapping the following year.
caption: Caio Duilio sailing to Malta for internment, 9 September 1943.
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