Giuseppe Fioravanzo Giuseppe Fioravanzo ( 14 August 1891 – 18 March 1975 ) was an Italian admiral . Giuseppe Fioravanzo was one of the " intellectuals " of the Regia Marina ; together with admirals Bernotti and Di Giamberardino he was one of the main authors of the development of Italian naval doctrine between the two World Wars . After serving with distinction in the Italo - Turkish War and the First World War , from the 1920s he started his activity as a naval theorist and writer besides continuing his military career . During the Second World War , having been promoted to Divisional Admiral , he held important commitments , both operational and related to General Staff . After the war he directed the Historical Office of the Italian Navy for many years . Early career . He was born in Monselice , a town about 20 km southeast of Padua in north - east Italy , although the family , of noble heritage , hailed from Florence . He entered the Italian Naval Academy in 1909 and graduated as a " guardiamarina " ( Sub - lieutenant ) in 1912 . He was still a cadet when he participated in the Italo - Turkish War aboard the battleship . First World War . He took part to the First World War in the northern Adriatic Sea in the " Raggruppamento Marina " ( Navy Group ) . The first nucleus of the Group was formed by crewmen of the " Amalfi " cruiser after its sinking in July 1915 . The crew manned gun batteries of mixed calibers that engaged the enemy on the sea frontline . Fioravanzo commanded one of the 152 - mm batteries and distinguished himself , along with a fellow soldier equal in rank named Parona , on 15 and 16 May 1916 in engaging Austrian - Hungarian forces near Duino and hindering their advance towards Monfalcone . In July Fioravanzo ' s battery ( numbered 97 bis ) was transferred near Monfalcone to be deployed against Monte San Michele for use in the planned battle for the conquest of Gorizia . Later on it was moved back to Punta Sdobba . Inter - war years . After the First World War , in 1921 , Fioravanzo was assigned for some time to the Navy military command of the city of Pola ( now Pula , Croatia ) . In 1923 , after advancing to senior officer status he took command of the torpedo boat , an old vessel of the , with which he was sent to the Dodecanese to protect Italian interests threatened by tensions between ethnic Greeks and Turks . At the same time Fioravanzo began to publish his articles in the " Rivista Marittima " ( Maritime Magazine ) as well as his first books of naval theory , in so doing becoming one of the most promising officers of the Navy . He was among those Navy officers who supported the idea that the Italian Navy should build and deploy aircraft carriers of its own . He then served as a subaltern on the newly commissioned cruiser " Trieste " , and subsequently he assumed command of the destroyer " Freccia " and of the related 7 torpedo boat squadron . During the Second Italo - Abyssinian War , which resulted in a serious political crisis between Italy and Great Britain , Fioravanzo was Chief of Staff of the Commander - in - Chief of the Reunited Naval Forces , a body set up in September 1935 to give a framework of homogeneity for the employment and command criteria of the two squadrons into which the Italian Navy was then divided — this at a time when a clash with Great Britain seemed inevitable . From 14 January to 12 October 1936 he was in charge of the light cruiser " Armando Diaz " and in that same year he took over the Naval Command School and the destroyer " Aquila " , head of a set of three torpedo boat squadrons which were affiliated with the school . The School command , in addition to its institutional role of preparing promising ship captains for promotion to higher ranks , also had the secondary task of participating in the control of the Strait of Sicily . In this function Commander Fioravanzo also played a role in blockading the Strait to prevent USSR - shipped supplies from reaching Republican - held ports in Spain . Second World War . When Italy entered World War II on 10 June 1940 , Fioravanzo was promoted to " Contrammiraglio " ( Counter - Admiral ) . During the course of the war he was a Staff member until March 1942 , when his assignments became of a mostly operational nature . In the meantime he had advanced to the rank of " Ammiraglio di Divisione " ( Divisional Admiral ) . During his early period at Rome , in the Staff , Fioravanzo had the function of assistant Admiral in the " Supermarina " war room . He was able to follow the course of operations directly , along with other assistant admirals who rotated around the clock . Thus he oversaw all the operations in which the Italian Navy was involved during the first twenty months of war , including , together with Admirals Ferreri and De Courten , " Operation Gaudo " , that led to the Battle of Cape Matapan . Above all Fioravanzo was responsible for the Navy Department of Special Studies : the actual " study office " of the then Regia Marina . As such Fioravanzo studied most projects of Navy " special operations " and the related deployment of forces . He was the one who , well before the war , devised the first draft of the plan for the forthcoming invasion of Malta , dubbed " Operation C3 " . The Department of Special Studies was concerned not only in projects , but also in the rewriting of tactical regulations , of operational statistics , of the writing of articles for magazines and newsletters , and of propaganda ( via radio also ) . Among Fioravanzo ' s most important tasks and initiatives it is worth mentioning that in May 1941 , he collaborated with Regia Aeronautica Generals Cappa and Mattei to write a series of norms aimed at easing the cooperation between the Navy and the Air Force , until that time very poor , and to create and publish the so - called " blue bulletin " that , every two weeks , updated operational commands on the activity of Italian and British Navy Forces during the previous fortnight ; moreover , the Admiral added his own critical remarks to the description of the most significant actions . The joint Navy - Air Force study had been encouraged by Chief of Staff Ugo Cavallero who in fact used admiral Fioravanzo , Army General Antonio Gandin ( who would later be executed at Cephallonia ) and Air Force General Mattei like a full - blown inter - forces commission . In Cavallero ' s aims , the study was meant to elaborate the so - called " mass action " against the British Mediterranean Fleet , necessary to acquire the supremacy at least in the central Mediterranean Sea in view of a decisive offensive towards Egypt . The plan was never carried out if not partially , but there is little doubt that this study inspired positively the later strategy of the Italian Navy . On 25 March 1942 he moved aboard ship to take command of the 9th Naval Division , which consisted of the s . The first combat action in which he participated was the contrast to British " Operation Vigorous " , which goal was to take a supply convoy from Alexandria , Egypt to Malta . This action took place in the wider naval clashed known as the Battle of Mid - June or " Operation Harpoon " and Fioravanzo participated on orders from Admiral Angelo Iachino , the higher commander at sea . The action of the 9th Division , together with that of the 3rd and 8th Division , forced the British to abandon the mission with no ballistic contact between the two sides . In January 1943 the Italian fleet was reorganized and Fioravanzo , on January 6 , left the command of the 9th Division and the following day he took the lead of the 5th Division formed by the old refurbished battleships of the and es . It was a purely " platonic " command : the refurbished battleships were in a reserve position , had no fuel and their operational deployment was not planned , and at any rate it had to be ruled out even for the 9th Division battleships , since the trend of the war was by then unfavorable for Italy . On March 14 , 1943 he became the leader of the 8th Naval Division , replacing Admiral Raffaele De Courten . In this capacity he was ordered to shell Palermo , which had fallen into the hands of the Allies some days before . This brought a negative turn in Fioravanzo ' s career : due to the anticipated return of the Division without accomplishing the mission , " Supermarina " ( the Regia Marina High Command ) decided to leave him ashore and replace him with Admiral Luigi Biancheri . The disembarkement and the loss of the leading position made it impossible for Fioravanzo to be promoted to Vice Admiral though remaining in active service . In practice , his career was over . Paradoxically , he was decorated with the Croce di Guerra for that action . The mission began on the evening of 6 August 1943 when the Admiral , set sail from Genoa towards La Maddalena ( Sardinia ) with the Division formed by light cruisers and . In the evening of the next day , the Division left La Maddalena bound for Palermo , where the Allied ships were riding at anchor . " Garibaldi " , however , had engine troubles and therefore could not develop more than 28 knots of speed . Furthermore , neither cruiser was equipped with radar . The sighting by the aerial reconnaissance of unknown ships " en route " towards 8th Division led Fioravanzo to consider that he was going to clash with an Allied naval force under conditions of sharp inferiority . Considering the risk of losing two cruisers , but above all the lives of 1 , 500 crew members without being able to cause significant damage to their opponent , Fioravanzo decided not to complete the mission and sail back to La Spezia although well - aware that this meant the end of his own career . After the war , it was ascertained through perusal of US archives that and were heading towards 8th Division with an escort of destroyers . Thus , retrospectively , Fioravanzo ' s decision turned out to be the most sensible . When the Armistice between Italy and Allied armed forces was signed , Fioravanzo was the military commander of the city of Taranto and offered to replace Admiral Da Zara , in charge of taking the Italian warships to Malta , in case he could not bring himself to do so . Later , during the co - belligerence with the Allies , Fioravanzo was part of the commission tasked with epurating ( substituting ) Regia Marina personnel who had compromised themselves with Fascism . After World War II . From 1950 onwards he directed the Navy Historical office . In that period being the head of such office , he was involved in a controversy with journalist Antonino Trizzino , author of the pamphlet " Navi e poltrone " ( " Ships and armchairs " ) . In his book Trizzino made accusations against the wartime Navy Staff , going as far as conjecturing that the admirals had betrayed the Italian Navy by favoring the Allied victory . Trizzino ' s book started the " legend " of a supposedly pro - British Regia Marina . Trizzino was fully acquitted in 1954 by the Milan Court of Appeal . Today , the wartime setbacks encountered by the Italian Navy and Merchant Marine are credited to Ultra , whose role in the Battle of the Mediterranean was made public in the early 1970s . In addition to being the director of the Historical Office , Fioravanzo directed the " Rivista Marittima " ( Maritime Magazine ) to which he had been contributing since the 1920s with nearly fifty articles on a wide variety of naval - related subjects . Fioravanzo left the direction of the Historical Office in 1959 , succeeded by Admiral Aldo Cocchia , one of the protagonists of the " battle of convoys " . However his work as a naval writer did not come to an end . During the 1960s and early 1970s the Historical Office , which he had directed for nearly ten years , published his works dedicated to naval actions in the Mediterranean and to the organization of the Navy in a series of books on the history of Regia Marina ( some of them posthumous ) . They are mandatory reading for all those who want to deepen their knowledge of history of the Italian Navy in the tragic period of World War II . Admiral Fioravanzo died in Rome on 18 March 1975 . As he requested in his last will , his entire personal archive was donated to the historical archive of the " Comune " of Monselice . Conclusions . Amongst all the soldiers who attained Admiral rank in the military of unified Italy , Fioravanzo certainly occupied a relevant place . The combat experience he made in two World Wars , the conspicuous production of written material on naval history and theory , his exchange of ideas with colleagues such as Bernotti and Di Giamberardino contributed to making Fioravanzo one of the best - known Italian admirals both in Italy and abroad . Through his Admiral status in World War II he contributed to the improvement of the collaboration between Regia Marina and Regia Aeronautica which allowed to operate in a manner more adherent to the reality of the conflict . The air and naval successes of Summer 1942 are also partly due to the effort made by Regia Aeronautica Generals and by himself . He was operatively involved in the Battle of Mid - June as battleships commander ; as leader of the 8th Division he was involved in the negative episode of the aborted Palermo shelling which cost him both leadership and career . However correct was his interpretation of the tactical situation , this was acknowledged only later , in retrospect . < br > From the doctrinal point of view Fioravanzo was an advocate of naval aviation from very early on . His main work was " La guerra sul mare e la guerra integrale " ( " War at sea and combined warfare " ) in which he arrived as far as predicting a real inter - forces strategy . However , when the book was published in 1931 , the time was not ripe yet for the Italian military to adopt such a doctrine . His strategical vision consisted of a defensive - active tactic . A smaller Navy like the Regia Marina should have avoided a resolutive clash , instead trying to keep its own communication lines open . Differently from his colleague Di Giamberardino , Fioravanzo never thought that the major naval battle was the key of the strategy ; vice versa , one or more naval battles would be sparked only by contrasts on the respective aims - nothing else than traffic operations .