SMS Pillau SMS " Pillau " was a light cruiser ordered by the Russian navy under the name " Maraviev Amurskyy " from the Schichau - Werke shipyard in Danzig in 1913 and launched in April 1914 . Following the outbreak of World War I , the ship was confiscated in August 1914 and renamed SMS " Pillau " . The ship was commissioned into the High Seas Fleet in December 1914 . The lead ship of her class , she had one sister ship , . She was armed with a main battery of eight 15 cm SK L / 45 guns and had a top speed of . " Pillau " spent the majority of her career in the II Scouting Group , and saw service in both the Baltic and North Seas . In August 1915 , she participated in the Battle of the Gulf of Riga against the Russian Navy , and on 31 May – 1 June 1916 , she saw significant action at the Battle of Jutland . She was hit by a large - caliber shell once in the engagement , but suffered only moderate damage . She assisted the badly damaged battlecruiser reach port on 2 June after the conclusion of the battle . She also took part in the Second Battle of Heligoland Bight , though was not damaged in the engagement . " Pillau " was assigned to the planned , final operation of the High Seas Fleet in the closing weeks of the war , but a large scale mutiny forced it to be canceled . After the end of the war , " Pillau " was ceded to Italy as a war prize in 1920 . Renamed " Bari " , she was commissioned in the " Regia Marina " ( Royal Navy ) in January 1924 . She was modified and rebuilt several times over the next two decades . In the early years of World War II , she provided gunfire support to Italian troops in several engagements in the Mediterranean . In 1943 , she was slated to become an anti - aircraft defense ship , but while awaiting conversion , she was sunk by USAAF bombers in Livorno in June 1943 . The wreck was partially scrapped by the Germans in 1944 , and ultimately raised for scrapping in January 1948 . Design . " Pillau " was ordered by the Russian Navy as " Maraviev Amurskyy " from the Schichau - Werke shipyard in Danzig . She was laid down in 1913 , and was launched on 11 April 1914 , after which fitting - out work commenced . She was requisitioned by the German Navy on 5 August 1914 , and renamed " Pillau " . She was commissioned into the High Seas Fleet on 14 December 1914 . The ship was long overall and had a beam of and a draft of forward . She displaced at full combat load . Her propulsion system consisted of two sets of Marine steam turbines driving two propellers . They were designed to give . These were powered by six coal - fired Yarrow water - tube boilers , and four oil - fired Yarrow boilers . These gave the ship a top speed of . " Pillau " carried of coal , and an additional of oil that gave her a range of approximately at . " Pillau " had a crew of twenty - one officers and 421 enlisted men . The ship was armed with eight 15 cm SK L / 45 guns in single pedestal mounts . Two were placed side by side forward on the forecastle , four were located amidships , two on either side , and two were side by side aft . She also carried four 5 . 2 cm SK L / 55 anti - aircraft guns , though these were replaced with a pair of two 8 . 8 cm SK L / 45 anti - aircraft guns . She was also equipped with a pair of torpedo tube s mounted on the deck . She could also carry 120 mines . The conning tower had thick sides , and the deck was covered with up to thick armor plate . Service history . Following her commissioning , " Pillau " was assigned to the II Scouting Group . Her first major operation was the Battle of the Gulf of Riga in August 1915 . A significant detachment from the High Seas Fleet , including eight dreadnought s and three battlecruisers , went into the Baltic to clear the Gulf of Riga of Russian naval forces . On 13 August , Russian submarines fired three torpedoes at the ship , all of which missed . " Pillau " participated in the second attack on 16 August , led by the dreadnoughts and . The minesweepers cleared the Russian minefields by the 20th , allowing the German squadron to enter the Gulf . The Russians had by this time withdrawn to Moon Sound , and the threat of Russian submarine s and mines in the Gulf prompted the Germans to retreat . The major units of the High Seas Fleet were back in the North Sea before the end of August . Battle of Jutland . In May 1916 , Admiral Reinhard Scheer , the fleet commander , planned to lure a portion of the British fleet away from its bases and destroy it with the entire High Seas Fleet . " Pillau " remained in the II Scouting Group , attached to the I Scouting Group , for the operation . The squadron left the Jade roadstead at 02 : 00 on 31 May , bound for the waters of the Skagerrak . The main body of the fleet followed an hour and a half later . Shortly before 15 : 30 , the opposing cruiser screens engaged ; was the first German cruiser to encounter the British . " Pillau " and steamed to assist , and at 16 : 12 they began firing on and at a range of . As the British ships turned away , the German shells fell short , and at 16 : 17 , " Pillau " and " Frankfurt " checked their fire . About fifteen minutes later , the three cruisers engaged a seaplane launched by the seaplane tender . They failed to score any hits , but the aircraft was forced off after which its engine broke down and it was forced to land . The three cruisers then returned to their stations ahead of the German battlecruisers . Shortly before 17 : 00 , the British 5th Battle Squadron had arrived on the scene , and at 16 : 50 they spotted " Pillau " , " Elbing " , and " Frankfurt " . Eight minutes later , the powerful battleships and opened fire at " Pillau " at a range of . Several salvos fell close to the German cruisers , prompting them to lay a cloud of smoke and turn away at high speed . About an hour later , the German battlecruisers were attacked by the destroyers and , but " Pillau " , " Frankfurt " , and the battlecruisers ' secondary guns drove them off . At around 18 : 30 , " Pillau " and the rest of the II Scouting Group encountered the cruiser ; they opened fire and scored several hits on the ship . As both sides ' cruisers disengaged , Rear Admiral Horace Hood ' s three battlecruisers intervened . His flagship scored a hit on " Wiesbaden " that exploded in her engine room and disabled the ship . " Pillau " was also hit by a shell from . The shell exploded below the ship ' s chart house ; most of the blast went overboard , but the starboard air supply shaft vented part of the explosion into the second boiler room . All six of the ship ' s coal - fired boilers were temporarily disabled , though she could still make on her four oil - fired boilers , allowing her to escape under cover of heavy fog . By 20 : 30 , three of the six boilers were back in operation , allowing her to steam at . At around 21 : 20 , the II Scouting Group again encountered the British battlecruisers . As they turned away , " Pillau " briefly came under fire from the battlecruisers , though to no effect . and both fired salvos at the ship before turning their attention to the battlecruiser ; " Pillau " s official record states that the British shooting was very inaccurate . " Pillau " and " Frankfurt " spotted the cruiser and several destroyers shortly before 23 : 00 . They each fired a torpedo at the British cruiser before turning back toward the German line without using their searchlights or guns to avoid drawing the British toward the German battleships . By 04 : 00 on 1 June , the German fleet had evaded the British fleet and reached Horns Reef . At 09 : 30 , " Pillau " was detached from the fleet to assist the crippled battlecruiser , which was having trouble navigating back to port . " Pillau " steamed ahead of " Seydlitz " to guide her back to Wilhelmshaven , but shortly after 10 : 00 , the battlecruiser ran aground off Sylt . After freeing " Seydlitz " at 10 : 30 , the voyage back resumed , with a division of minesweepers steaming ahead testing the depth to prevent another grounding . " Seydlitz " continued to take on water and sink lower in the water ; she turned around and steamed in reverse in an attempt to improve the situation . " Pillau " also attempted to tow the battlecruiser , but was unable because the line repeatedly snapped . A pair of pumping steamers arrived in the evening , and slow progress was made through the night , with " Pillau " still guiding the voyage . The ships reached the outer Jade lightship at 08 : 30 and anchored twenty minutes later . In the course of the engagement , " Pillau " had fired 113 rounds of 15 cm ammunition and four 8 . 8 cm shells . She also launched one torpedo . Her crew suffered four men killed and twenty - three wounded . Later service . In July 1917 , a series of mutinies occurred on several ships of the fleet , including " Pillau " . While the ship was in harbor in Wilhelmshaven on the 20th , a group of 137 men left the ship to protest a cancellation of their leave . After a couple of hours in the town , the men returned to the ship and began to complete the tasks they had been ordered to do that morning as a show of good will . " Pillau " s commander did not take the event seriously , and ordered a limited punishment for the crewmen who had staged the protest . By late 1917 , " Pillau " had been assigned to the IV Scouting Group , along with and . In late October 1917 , the IV Scouting Group steamed to Pillau , arriving on the 30th . They were tasked with replacing the heavy units of the fleet that had just completed Operation Albion , the conquest of the islands in the Gulf of Riga , along with the battleships of the I Battle Squadron . The risk of mines that had come loose in a recent storm , however , prompted the naval command to cancel the mission , and " Pillau " and the rest of the IV Scouting Group was ordered to return to the North Sea on 31 October . Upon returning the North Sea , " Pillau " returned to the II Scouting Group . On 17 November , the four cruisers of the II Scouting Group , supported by the battleships and , covered a minesweeping operation in the North Sea . They were attacked by British cruisers , supported by battlecruisers and battleships , in the Second Battle of Heligoland Bight . , the II Scouting Group flagship , was damaged in the engagement , but the four cruisers managed to pull away from the British , drawing them toward the German dreadnoughts . They in turn forced the British to break off the attack ; neither side had significant success in the operation . " Pillau " emerged from the battle unscathed . On 23 – 24 April 1918 , the ship participated in an abortive fleet operation to attack British convoys to Norway . The I Scouting Group and II Scouting Group , along with the Second Torpedo - Boat Flotilla were to attack a heavily - guarded British convoy to Norway , with the rest of the High Seas Fleet steaming in support . The Germans failed to locate the convoy , which had in fact sailed the day before the fleet left port . As a result , Admiral Reinhard Scheer broke off the operation and returned to port . In October 1918 , " Pillau " and the rest of the II Scouting Group were to lead a final attack on the British navy . " Pillau " , , , and " Königsberg " were to attack merchant shipping in the Thames estuary while " Karlsruhe " , " Nürnberg " , and were to bombard targets in Flanders , to draw out the British Grand Fleet . Admirals Reinhard Scheer and Franz von Hipper intended to inflict as much damage as possible on the British navy , in order to secure a better bargaining position for Germany , whatever the cost to the fleet . On the morning of 29 October 1918 , the order was given to sail from Wilhelmshaven the following day . Starting on the night of 29 October , sailors on and then on several other battleships mutinied . The unrest ultimately forced Hipper and Scheer to cancel the operation . Italian service . " Pillau " briefly served in the newly reorganized " Reichsmarine " following the end of the war . She was stricken on 5 November 1919 and surrendered to the Allies in the French port of Cherbourg on 20 July 1920 . She was ceded to Italy as a war prize under the name " U " . She was renamed " Bari " and commissioned into the Regia Marina on 21 January 1924 . The 8 . 8 cm anti - aircraft guns were replaced with / 40 guns . On 19 July 1929 , she was reclassified as a cruiser . In 1933 – 1934 , " Bari " was refitted for colonial service and converted to oil - firing . The six coal - fired boilers were removed to allow for additional oil bunker space , and the forward funnel was removed and the remaining two were cut down . This reduced her power to and a top speed of . Her cruising range was increased considerably , from at to at that speed . By the outbreak of World War II in 1939 , her armament had been increased by six guns and six machine guns . Her wartime career was in support of landings at Corfu in 1940 and Bastia in 1942 and anti - partisan bombardments off the Montenegrin coast in 1942 . In early 1943 , she was slated for conversion to an anti - aircraft ship . She was to be rearmed with six / 50 guns , eight guns , and eight new model 20 mm / 65 or / 70 machine guns . On 28 June , however , American bombers badly damaged " Bari " at Livorno and she sank in shallow water two days later . At the Italian armistice in September 1943 , she was further damaged to render her useless to the German occupiers . The wreck was partially scrapped by the Germans in 1944 . She was officially removed from the navy list on 27 February 1947 , and raised on 13 January 1948 for scrapping .