Orazio Bernardini

Orazio Bernardini (Vicenza, 29 July 1899 – Rome, 16 March 1967) was an Italian admiral.

Biography

Born in Vicenza on 29 July 1899, he was admitted in 1913 to the Naval Academy of Livorno, graduating as ensign in 1917. After a period as a junior officer on capital ships during the First World War and promotion to sub-lieutenant, he attended the Aviation School of Taranto, obtaining the airplane observer license. In the same year he was promoted to lieutenant and subsequently appointed executive officer on the destroyers Generale Antonio Cantore, Giacinto Carini and Generale Antonio Chinotto, and later commanding officer of the submarines H 6, N 1 and N 6 and of the torpedo boats 42 PN, 34 PN and 60 OL. Overall, during his service in North Africa he was awarded two bronze medals and two war crosses for military valor.

He was then repatriated and assigned to the Ministry of the Navy in Rome, at the Naval Armaments Directorate, planning the transfer of the XII Squadriglia MAS to Lake Ladoga. In December 1942 he was appointed commander of the garrison of Lampedusa, consisting of 4,400 men. On 13 June 1943, after a week of heavy Allied aerial and naval bombardment and the fall of nearby Pantelleria, Bernardini surrendered the island to the British, after which he was sento to Wilton Park as a prisoner of war. He was released in 1944, following the armistice of Cassibile, and given command of the battleship Giulio Cesare in 1945.

After the war he was head of the Italian Navy's sailing sports office from 1949 to 1954; in this capacity he secretly used motorboat races to covertly continue the training of assault craft operators, which had been prohibited by the 1947 peace treaty. In late 1954 he retired from active service with the rank of rear admiral. He died in 1967.