From: Biniam Tekle (biniamt@dehai.org)
Date: Tue Mar 03 2009 - 15:55:13 EST
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eritrea_(ship)
The Italian colonial ship Eritrea was constructed in the Castellammare
Shipyards. Construction started in 1935 and she was commissioned in 1937.
Design
Eritrea was constructed for duties as a typical "colonial ship" and was
sometimes referred to as a "sloop." She had a novel diesel-electric
machinery outfit designed to maximise range.
She was armed with four 120 mm guns, two 40 mm guns, and two 13.2 mm machine
guns. The ship also had an extensive engineering workshop on board and could
provide repair support to Italian submarines based in East Africa.
A modified sister ship to be called Etiopia was planned, but cancelled on
the outbreak of war.
Service
Following Italy's declaration of war on 10 June 1940, colonial ship Eritrea
became part of the Italian Royal Navy (Regia Marina). Eritrea was part of
the Italian Navy's Red Sea Flotilla located at the port of Massawa in
Eritrea.
In February 1941, as the East African Campaign started to go badly for the
Italians, Massawa, the home port for Eritrea became more endangered. Along
with Ramb I and Ramb II, Eritrea slipped through a British blockade off
Perim and sailed into the Indian Ocean on 20 February 1941. She sailed
across the Indian Ocean and ultimately reached Kobe, Japan. Upon reaching
Japan, Eritrea was supposed to operate as a commerce raider in the Pacific
Ocean. Even though allied with Italy, the authorities of then neutral Japan
took a dim view of the idea of an Italian raider operating from neutral
Japanese ports. The Japanese refused to comply with the Italian plans and
Eritrea was not allowed to leave Kobe.
In December 1941, after the official declaration of war, the Japanese
government allowed Eritrea to provide assistance to "transport submarines."
These submarines, carrying rare goods, arrived in Japanese-held Penang and
Singapore from the distant bases in German-held Bordeaux.
On 8 September 1943, when Italy declared an armistice, Eritrea was
navigating between Singapore and Sabang to give a support to the Italian
oceanic cargo submarine Cappellini. The submarine had just arrived from
occupied France after a long and difficult voyage. As soon as the Reuters
message about the surrender of Italy was picked up by the crew of Eritrea,
the vessel changed course at once and headed at full speed to Colombo in
Ceylon to surrender when it was intercepted and escorted to Colombo by units
of the Ceylon Naval Volunteer Force. Eritrea passed by Sumatra and escaped
despite the presence of the Japanese aerial and naval units.
After the war, Eritrea was turned over to France. The French Navy used
Eritrea in colonial service with the name Francis Garnier. Francis Garnier
was then declassed to become a target ship. She was sunk during an air
attack drill in Pacific Ocean in 1966.