HMS Upright sinks Armando Diaz in six minutes

Before the Second World War, Armando Diaz trained during the Spanish Civil War and made a prestige cruise to Australia and New Zealand to advertise Italian naval capability. It was quite an advertisement for the competing British Amphion class: the joke is that Armando Diaz made Australia's case for buying one. She fought at Calabria and later protected traffic to Albania. On 25 February 1941, while sailing with the Giussano-class cruiser Giovanni delle Bande Nere on a convoy operation toward Tripoli, the U-class submarine HMS Upright struck her off Kerkennah. A magazine detonated, and the cruiser sank in about six minutes with 484 men lost. The wreck now lies on its port side in less than 50 metres of water with the bow destroyed and the turret guns buried in the seabed.