Carlo Cattaneo

Carlo Cattaneo (6 October 1883 – 29 March 1941) was an Italian admiral during World War II. He was killed in the Battle of Cape Matapan.

Early life and career

Cattaneo was born in Sant'Anastasia, Naples, in 1883, and after attending the Naples Military College he entered the Italian Naval Academy at Livorno in 1902; he graduated in 1906, becoming an ensign.

He joined the crew of the battleship Ammiraglio di Saint Bon, with which he took part in the rescue operations after the 1908 Messina earthquake. Cattaneo's force did not manage to reach Iachino's squadron in time for joining the first engagement against the light cruisers of British Admiral Henry Pridham-Wippell, which took place off Gavdos in the morning of 27 March. Cattaneo was also criticised for the low speed at which he sailed his ships (16 to 22 knots); this was later explained with the destroyers being low on fuel. The hits immediately destroyed the 203 mm turrets before they could be readied to fire, started fires aboard, killed or wounded many crewmembers, disabled the engines and within a few minutes left the cruiser without power and dead in the water. As the crew abandoned the ship by jumping into the sea or lowering themselves down to the rafts, a small party of volunteers opened the seacocks and ignited the demolition charges placed in the cruiser's magazines. At the same time, HMS Jervis came near and torpedoed Zara; the cruiser went down at 2.40 on 29 March, after a final large explosion. Admiral Cattaneo, who according to survivors had abandoned the ship without a lifejacket as he had given it to a wounded sailor, disappeared in the sea during the night, like most of Zara s crew. Over 2,300 Italian officers and seamen from the five ships perished in Italy's worst naval defeat. Admiral Cattaneo was posthumously awarded the Gold Medal of Military Valor.