A significant date for the Navy is that of the September 9, which recalls the sacrifice of military and civilian sailors who disappeared at sea in favor of the Fatherland.
"The Day of Remembrance of the Sailors who disappeared at sea", established with Law 31 July 2002 n. 186, is considered a civil solemnity and is commemorated every year at the National Monument to the "Sailor of Italy" in Brindisi, a city that played an important role as a naval base in the Lower Adriatic for the Royal Navy.
The choice of the date of 9 September has a precise historical significance. A symbolic day linked to the sinking of the battleship Roma (photo), hit and sunk in the waters of the Asinara by a German plane.
After the Italian armistice to the battleship Roma was ordered to reach the island of La Maddalena along with other military units. The day after the armistice the Italian naval squad was attacked by German bombers. The history of the battleship Roma it was the most dramatic; struck, shortly after the 15.00, she had to face a flaw created by the aerial bomb that crossed her hull exploding underwater.
Immediately after a second shot it hit the unit towards the bow causing damage and the deflagration of the ammunition depots blew up tower n. 2 (heavy 1500 tons) causing it to fall into the water, while the armored command tower was destroyed. The situation was now tragic, the surviving sailors, including seriously injured and burned, tried to save themselves; those of them who were in the stern about to jump into the water perished during the explosion. Shortly after 16:00 the unit broke into two sections, sinking within minutes.
That tragic 9 September the sea engulfed 1393 sailors together with the ship's commander, vessel captain Adone Del Cima, and the commander of the Royal Navy's Naval Forces, Admiral Carlo Bergamini. Also on the same day, in the waters of the Maddalena archipelago, the destroyers From Noli e Vivaldi they were hit and sunk causing 270 victims.
The ship direction Roma, one of the most important shrines of the Navy, was identified on June 17, 2012. Part of the wreck lies over a thousand meters deep and about 16 miles from the Sardinian coast of the Gulf of Asinara.
The National Monument to the "Sailor of Italy", built in 1933 on the initiative of the Italian Naval League on the occasion of the awarding of the War Cross to the Apulian city, is made of Trani carparo stone and has the shape of a gigantic ship's rudder, 54 meters high from the upper square on which it stands and 68 meters from the square below. On the entrance door there is a plaque commemorating the sacrifice of the fallen Italian sailors. On the sides of the Monument, in the upper square, there are two anchors belonging to the Austrian battleships Viribus Unitis e Tegetthoff and two cannons from as many Austrian submarines.
At the base there is access to a votive crypt with ogival arches with a central nave and eight niches. On the altar stands a bronze statue of the Madonna Stella Maris. Inside, the names of the 5.922 sailors who died during the First World War and, numerically, those of the Second World War (33.900) and of the sunken military and merchant units (870 and 2.274 respectively) are carved. On the walls of the crypt are remembered the names of the sailors awarded the Gold Medal during the First World War (8) and the Second (118).
In the 1968, during the dredging works of the Brindisi area, the battleship bell was recovered Benedetto Brin, sunk in the harbor on the morning of 27 September 1915 following the explosion of the Santabarbara. The Marine Command decided that it should be placed and preserved in Brindisi in the monument's shrine.
