Before the armistice, the Taranto light-cruiser group laid minefields in the Gulfs of Taranto and Squillace to complicate an Allied advance from Sicily. Once Italy changed sides, combat with German forces began almost immediately. Scipione Africano encountered German S-boats on the way to Pescara, then joined the corvette Baionetta and escorted King Victor Emmanuel III and the royal party to Brindisi. Her guns helped drive off a Luftwaffe attack during the passage. Later that month she carried Marshal Pietro Badoglio to Malta for the formal armistice terms and subsequently operated alongside Allied ships. The sequence shows how rapidly one warship's missions changed when a coalition collapsed.
Chapter · 34:43-37:27
Minefields, evacuation duty, and Italy's sudden change of sides
Scipione Africano shifted from mining the Gulf of Taranto to escorting Italy's king and government as fighting with Germany began immediately after the armistice.