The italian BB's were known for their classical and graceful lines and were considered by many to be the most attractive ships ever built...The Roma goes down in history as being the first ships to be sunk by a guided missile, the German Fritz X---which was a marvel of engineering, but that's another story...
Loss
The magazine of
Roma's number two 15-inch (381-mm) turret explodes on 9 September 1943.
Along with many of the principal units of the Italian fleet—including Vittorio Veneto and Italia (the ex-Littorio)[N 4]—the cruisers Eugenio di Savoia, Raimondo Montecuccoli, and Emanuele Filiberto Duca d'Aosta, and eight destroyers—Roma sailed from La Spezia as the flagship of Admiral Carlo Bergamini on 9 September 1943, a day after the proclamation of the 1943 Italian armistice. Joined by three additional cruisers from Genoa, Duca degli Abruzzi, Giuseppe Garibaldi, and Attilio Regolo, the fleet first sailed towards Salerno in a deliberate diversion to convince the Germans that they were going to attack the Allied ships sailing to invade Italy as part of Operation "Avalanche". However, the Italian fleet was actually intending to break course and steam towards the British island of Malta to surrender. When Germany learned of the betrayal, the Luftwaffe sent Dornier Do 217s armed with Fritz X radio-controlled bombs to attack the ships. These aircraft caught up with the force when it was in the Strait of Bonifacio.[15][18][19]
A Fritz X radio-controlled bomb
The Do 217s trailed the fleet for some time, but the Italian fleet did not open fire upon sighting them; they were trailing the fleet at such a distance that it was impossible to identify them as Allied or Axis, and Bergamini believed that they were the air cover promised to them by the Allies. However, an attack upon Italia and Roma at 15:37 spurred the fleet into action, as the anti-aircraft batteries onboard opened fire and all ships began evasive maneuvers. About fifteen minutes after this, Italia was hit on the starboard side underneath her fore main turrets, while Roma was hit on the same side somewhere between frames 100 and 108. This bomb passed through the ship and exploded beneath the ships' keel, damaging the hull girder and allowing water to flood the after engine room and two boiler rooms. The flooding caused the inboard propellers to stop for want of power and started a large amount of arcing, which itself caused many electrical fires in the aft half of the ship.[20]
Losing power and speed, Roma began to fall out of the battle group. Around 16:02, another Fritz X slammed into the starboard side of the Roma's deck, between frames 123 and 136. It most likely detonated in the forward engine room, sparking flames, and causing heavy flooding in the magazines of main battery turret number two and the fore port side secondary battery turret, and putting even more pressure upon the previously stressed hull girder. Seconds after the initial blast, the number two 15-inch (381-mm) turret was blown over the side by a massive explosion, this time from the detonation of that turret's magazines.[20]
This caused additional catastrophic flooding in the bow, and the battleship began to go down by the bow while leaning more and more to starboard. The ship quickly capsized and broke in two. The ship had a crew of 1,849 when she sailed; 596 survived with 1,253 men going down with Roma.