Vivaldi had quite an eventful history during World War II. She was the flagship of the 14th Destroyer Division, that included her sisterships Da Noli, Pancaldo, and Malocello. In August 1940, less than two months after Italy had entered the war, she rammed and sank a submarine, HMS Oswald, and then rescued her entire crew. In the next year and a half she escorted dozens of supply convoys between Italy and North Africa and gained a reputation for "never losing a ship" despite the heavy air and submarine attacks along these routes; this was because her Captain, Giovanni Galati, often disregarded orders coming from the naval high command, instead basing his decisions on his own assessment and experience. Galati, like other officers at the time, did so because he was convinced that traitors hiding in the high ranks were informing the Allies about the convoys sailing for Africa, and that disregarding the instructions coming from the high command would reduce the risk of being intercepted: the basic idea was right, because the Allies really knew about the convoys – although this was not caused by traitors, but instead by ULTRA intercepts, whose existence was unknown to the Axis –, and so, diverting from the scheduled course did help in eluding their attacks. In June 1942 she participated in an attack against a British convoy to Malta (Operation Harpoon) and, while clashing with the escorting destroyers, she received a hit in the engine rooms that started a massive fire and left her dead in the water. The crippled Vivaldi and her consort Malocello ended up facing five British destroyers, and at one point Vivaldi’s captain, Ignazio Castrogiovanni (whom had replaced Galati a few months earlier) radioed “I’ll fight to the last, long live the king” and ordered Malocello to abandon Vivaldi to her fate and save herself. Malocello refused, and remained to protect her disabled sistership. Luckily for them, the British escort leader, who at the time was facing the bulk of the Italian attack force (two cruisers and another three destroyers) a few miles away, recalled back his destroyers to help him against them, so Vivaldi and Malocello were left alone. The fire burned for hours and basically cut the ship in two, with the crew in the bow unable to go to the stern and vice versa, but in the end the flames were put out and Vivaldi was towed to port. Repairs for this massive damage took nearly one year, and this was probably lucky for her, as that period was the most dangerous one for the destroyers serving on the North African routes; many were sunk including her sisters and fellow member of DesDiv 14, Malocello and Pancaldo. Then the Italian armistice came, and on 9 September 1943 Vivaldi was tasked with a mission of utmost importance; as the Germans were occupying Italy and would soon capture Rome, she and her sistership Da Noli were to sail from Genoa to Civitavecchia, near Rome, where they would embark the king and the government and bring them to La Maddalena, Sardinia, to prevent them from being captured by the Germans. However when the two ships arrived near Civitavecchia, the order was rescinded, as the Germans had already taken the Rome-Civitavecchia road and the king had fled towards Pescara, on the opposite coast of Italy. Vivaldi and Da Noli were ordered to sail west to meet the rest of the Italian fleet off La Maddalena, and once they were there, they were ordered to engage German craft that were transferring German troops from Sardinia to Corsica. They did so, and sank or damaged some of these craft, but they ended under fire from the coastal batteries on the Corsican coast, that their personnel – belonging to the Blackshirts – had turned over to the Germans. Da Noli sank on a mine, and Vivaldi was badly damaged, but managed to limp away. A few hours later, while sailing west at reduced speed, she was attacked again by German bombers, and further damaged by a Henschel Hs 293 guided missile. She still carried on for some more hours at a speed of a few knots, while the crew struggled to save the ship; but in the end her badly damaged engines ceased working for good, and the captain decided to have her scuttled. Vivaldi sank on 10 September, about 50 miles west of Asinara island, taking down with her an officer and a petty officer whom had gone back aboard to speed up her sinking. She was the fourth and last of her Destroyer Division to be sunk in the war. Her survivors went through quite an odyssey; some were rescued by German floatplanes that were strafed and destroyed by American aircraft immediately thereafter, killing some of the survivors. Others were picked up by a German vessel and ended up in POW camps in Germany, and others more were rescued by an American floatplane. Another group was picked up by a British submarines, HMS Sportsman, who brought them to Algeria, and dozens more reached the Balearic Islands (Spain) after spending days at sea in various boats, some of them staying adrift for a week or more.
