War & conflict · Inventions & technology

Four navies, five decades, one small boat nobody could sink

Built for an empire that ceased to exist three years later, this torpedo boat kept finding new owners: Austria-Hungary, then Yugoslavia, then Italy after it was captured in 1941, then Yugoslavia again after the Italian surrender. It fought in both world wars on opposite sides and was still afloat as a training ship in 1963. The most striking moment came in June 1918, when it escorted a dreadnought that Italian torpedo boats sank underneath it, and spent the aftermath pulling survivors out of the Adriatic. It is a good way to watch a century of Balkan and Adriatic history through one 250-tonne hull.

When Italy captured her in 1941, the Italians upgraded her guns and kept sailing her under the same Yugoslav name, T5 — and after Italy capitulated in 1943 she went back to the Yugoslavs, still called T5.

Read the whole of Yugoslav torpedo boat T5 on Wikipedia

The article comes from Wikipedia and is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. The introduction above is our own.