Port of Anzio - 11 November 1910. "The Carabinieri today delivers to you, captains, crews of the two destroyers Corazziere e Carabiniere, these banners that we wish you are always inspiring of faith and victory. The virtues of which our weapon was glorious, we hope will be repeated on these ships, which today are celebrated in the name of the King and the Fatherland ”. With these words, the commander Arma of the Carabinieri Del Rosso, opened his speech on the occasion of the delivery of the flags of combat to the first units that the Navy wanted to name after the Weapon, confirming the continued relationship with the Royal Navy .
A collaboration, that between the Navy and the Arma, which officially dates back to March 27, 1879, the date on which the "Specific Unit" was established by Royal decree and available on the budget of the Ministry of the Navy for the supervision of the arsenals of La Spezia and Taranto. A measure that was part of the series of initiatives launched by the minister, Admiral Benedetto Brin, to enhance the security of the arsenal structures and military installations in general.
A first group was made up of three officers and 250 non-commissioned officers and carabinieri, who did not fail to honor the prestige of the weapon with high-value actions such as when in 1920, in the context of the social and political unrest that had resulted in our country, the Carabiniere Leone Carmana, on guard in the local powder magazine in La Spezia, with a very high sense of duty and contempt of danger, closed the door of the powder magazine behind him and engaged in a fire fight with the rioters resisting although wounded until reinforcements arrived. For the readiness and courage shown he obtained the Gold Medal for Military Valor.
The initial "Specific Unit" was strengthened and more articulated following changes in the national territory in the 1924, with the establishment of the "Royal Navy Carabinieri Office".
In the 1928, the office became "Royal Carabinieri Command" at the Ministry of the Royal Navy and the 23 in January 1941 changed its name to "Royal Carabinieri Command for the Royal Navy" with a new expansion of staff determined above all by the changed war requirements.
After the 8 September 1943, the carabinieri on duty at the facilities of the Regia Marina participated, together with the sailors, in the fighting against the German troops that tried to occupy the nerve centers of the Italian defenses and coastal establishments.
In the 1948, the Royal Carabinieri Command for the Royal Navy, with the institutional change, takes the name of Navy Carabinieri Command, with supervisory duties, judicial police, military and security police for the protection of secrecy, as well as, from the 1949, special information activity with personnel framed in the information services of the Navy. This order is in fact the current one.
A combination based on mutual respect between the Arma dei Carabinieri and the Royal Navy first and then the Navy, an essential functional collaboration to which the Naval Carabinieri from 137 years uninterruptedly and silently await with value at the service of the Institution.
The collaboration that links the Carabinieri and the Navy has always been a strict institutional bond of high professionalism, inspired by a cordial discretion in respect of the specificity of the reciprocal roles.
Over time, the Navy, as an everlasting testimony of gratitude for the Carabinieri, and in particular for the services rendered to the Armed Force, wanted to pay tribute to the weapon by embodying 4 units of the name "Carabiniere", a destroyer in the 1910, a destroyer in 1938, a frigate in 1968 and, lastly, the third of the FREMM program units, delivered in 2014, which recently honored the Navy and the Nation with its activity in the Indian Ocean as part of the anti-piracy mission EUNAVFOR.
