Italian cruiser Alessandro Poerio

Alessandro Poerio was an Italian scout cruiser, the lead ship of the Alessandro Poerio-class cruiser. Commissioned into service in the Italian Regia Marina (Royal Navy) in 1915, she served during World War I, participating in the Adriatic campaign, initially operating in the upper Adriatic Sea and later in the southern Adriatic. She took part in 66 operations during the war, often supporting raids by Italian motor torpedo boats. She was reclassified as a destroyer in 1921 due to her light displacement. Like her sister ships, ITALIAN CRUISER Cesare Rossarol and ITALIAN CRUISER Guglielmo Pepe, she was named after a famous Neapolitan light cavalryman who helped defend Venice from attacks by the Imperial Austrian Army during the revolutions in 1848.

In 1937, Fascist Italy sold the ship to the Nationalist faction in Spain during the Spanish Civil War. Renamed Huesca, the ship subsequently served in the Spanish Navy until she was stricken in 1953.

Design
Alessandro Poerio was an Italian "light scout cruiser" (Italian:esploratore leggero) measuring 85 m long and 8 m in beam. She had three Yarrow three-drum water-tube boilers with water pipes, two groups of Belluzzo steam turbines rated at 24000 hp, and two three-blade propellers. Her fuel capacity of 325 tons gave her a range of 2,400 nmi at 13 kn. She could launch torpedoes while maintaining a constant speed of over 30 kn. Her normal displacement was 891 tons standard, and her full-load displacement was 1,270 tons.

Plans originally called for Alessandro Poerio to have an armament of four 102/35 mm guns and eight 450 mm torpedo tubes, but was revised during construction, and she entered service with six 102/35-millimetre guns and four 450 mm torpedo tubes, and a minelaying capacity of 42 mines, making her armament equivalent to that of an Austro-Hungarian Novara-class cruiser scout cruiser. In 1917 two 40/39 mm guns were installed aboard her. In 1918, she was refitted with 102/45 mm guns.

Construction and commissioning
Alessandro Poerio was laid down by Gio. Ansaldo & C. at Sestri Ponente, Italy, on 25 June 1913. She was launched on 4 August 1914 and commissioned on 25 May 1915.

1915–1916
World War I began in 1914, and the Kingdom of Italy entered the war on the side of the Allies with its declaration of war on Austria-Hungary on 23 May 1915. Alessandro Poerio entered service two days after Italy declared war. On 30 December 1915 she became part of the 2nd Scouting Group of the 4th Naval Division along with her sister ships ITALIAN CRUISER Cesare Rossarol and ITALIAN CRUISER Guglielmo Pepe, based at Venice.

On 1–2 November 1916, Alessandro Poerio, Guglielmo Pepe, and the destroyers ITALIAN DESTROYER Francesco Nullo, and ITALIAN DESTROYER Giuseppe Missori made ready to provide possible support to an incursion by MAS motor torpedo boats into the Fasana Channel on the southwest coast of Istria, a peninsula on the coast of Austria-Hungary.

An Austro-Hungarian Navy force consisting of the scout cruiser SMS Helgoland (1912) and the destroyers SMS Balaton, SMS Csepel, SMS Lika (1917), SMS Orjen, SMS Tatra, and SMS Triglav (1917) left Cattaro on 18 October 1917 to attack Italian convoys. The Austro-Hungarians found no convoys, so Helgoland and Lika moved to within sight of Brindisi to entice Italian ships into chasing them and lure the Italians into an ambush by the Austro-Hungarian submarines SM U-32 and SM U-40. At 06:30 on 19 October 1917, Alessandro Poerio, Guglielmo Pepe, and the destroyers ITALIAN DESTROYER Insidioso, ITALIAN DESTROYER Pilade Bronzetti, and ITALIAN DESTROYER Simone Schiaffino got underway from Brindisi to pursue the Austro-Hungarians. The destroyers ITALIAN DESTROYER Ippolito Nievo and ITALIAN DESTROYER Rosolino Pilo and the British light cruiser HMS Weymouth (1910) diverted from a voyage from Vlorë (known to the Italians as Valona) on the coast of the Principality of Albania to Brindisi to join the pursuit. After a long chase which also saw some Italian air attacks on the Austro-Hungarian ships, the Austro-Hungarians escaped and all the Italian ships returned to port without damage.

On 10 March 1918, the destroyer ITALIAN DESTROYER Antonio Mosto, with the motor torpedo boat MAS 100 in tow, and Ippolito Nievo, towing MAS 99, set out for a raid on Portorož (known to the Italians as Portorose) on the coast of Austria-Hungary, supported by Alessandro Poerio, Cesare Rossarol, Pilade Bronzetti, the scout cruisers ITALIAN DESTROYER Augusto Riboty and ITALIAN DESTROYER Carlo Mirabello, the destroyer ITALIAN DESTROYER Giacinto Carini, and a French Navy destroyer squadron led by the destroyer FRENCH DESTROYER Casque. Antonio Mosto, Ippolito Nievo, MAS 99, and MAS 100 reached the vicinity of Portorož, but then had to postpone the operation due to bad weather. The ships attempted the raid again on 16 March, but adverse weather again forced its postponement. They made a third attempt on 8 April 1918, but after aerial reconnaissance ascertained that the port of Portorož was empty, the Italians again called off the operation.

On 2 October 1918 Alessandro Poerio, Cesare Rossarol, Gulglielmo Pepe, Ippolito Nievo, and Simone Schiaffino were at sea with the battleship ITALIAN BATTLESHIP Dante Alighieri and the scout cruiser ITALIAN CRUISER Carlo Alberto Racchia to provide distant cover for a British and Italian naval bombardment of Durrës. The main mission of Alessandro Poerio′s force was to counter any attack against the bombardment force by Austro-Hungarian ships based at Cattaro.

By late October 1918, Austria-Hungary had effectively disintegrated, and the Armistice of Villa Giusti, signed on 3 November 1918, went into effect on 4 November 1918 and brought hostilities between Austria-Hungary and the Allies to an end. World War I ended with an armistice between the Allies and the German Empire on 11 November 1918.

Post-World War I
In 1921, Alessandro Poerio was reclassified as a destroyer. She made various cruises and took part in representation missions in the Aegean Sea and Black Sea. In 1927, she underwent modifications that included the removal of one of her 40/39 mm guns. In 1933, her commanding officer was Capitano di fregata (Frigate Captain) Ignazio Castrogiovanni, who as a capitano di vascello (ship-of-the-line captain) during World War II would receive a posthumous Gold Medal of Military Valor as commanding officer of the destroyer ITALIAN DESTROYER Aviere in 1942.

During 1936, Alessandro Poerio underwent minor repairs and maintenance. With the Spanish Civil War underway, Fascist Italy sold Alessandro Poerio (for a price of 5 million pesetas) and Guglielmo Pepe to the Nationalist faction in Spain. Handed over to the Spanish Nationalists at the end of October 1937, Alessandro Poerio finally was stricken from the Regia Marina′s naval register on 5 January 1939.

Modifications
The Spanish Nationalists renamed the ship Huesca. An old ship by 1937, she had worn-out propulsion machinery and, in the view of the Nationalists, inadequate armament. She underwent major modifications in which her hull was lengthened by 1 m, her draft was reduced to 2.8 m, her original boilers were replaced by five Yarrow boilers, one 102 mm (4 in) gun and both 40 mm guns were removed, and two 37 mm and two 20 mm guns were installed. Her standard displacement dropped to 845 tons aand her full-load displacement to 911 tons, her maximum speed fell to 31 kn, and her crew rose to 130 men.

Service history
The Spanish Nationalists took possession of Huesca at Sardinia at the end of October 1937. Manned by a Spanish crew, she departed Sardinia under the command of Capitán de corbeta (Corvette Captain) Luis Carrero Blanco — a future admiral — on 29 November 1937 bound for Palma de Mallorca on Mallorca in the Balearic Islands. Upon arrival, she joined the Nationalist destroyer flotilla based there and began convoy escort duties, support to ground operations, the interdiction of merchant ships of the Second Spanish Republic, and antisubmarine patrols. She put to sea for the first time on 14 December 1937, but soon suffered a mechanical breakdown and had to return to base. Frequent mechanical difficulties would dog her throughout the Spanish Civil War, leaving her short of acceptable performance as a Nationalist ship.

On 5 April 1938, Capitán de corbeta (Corvette Captain) Félix de Ozámiz took command of Huesca. Under his command, she got underway from Palma de Mallorca as part of a flotilla on 24 May 1938, and that night her sister ship, the destroyer Teruel (the former Guglielmo Pepe) accidentally rammed her stern. Teruel proceeded to Cádiz for repairs to her bow. Meanwhile, the seriously damaged Huesca returned to Palma de Mallorca, which she reached with considerable difficulty. After emergency repairs, she departed Palma de Mallorca on 14 June 1938 and proceeded to Cádiz, where she was under repair until 20 August 1938.

In the last days of August 1938, Huesca participated along with a large part of the Nationalist fleet in an operation to intercept the Spanish Republican Navy destroyer SPANISH DESTROYER José Luis Díez. The operation forced José Luis Díez to take refuge at Gibraltar.

Huesca then returned to Palma de Mallorca in September 1938, continuing with blockade operations and capturing the motorsailer Arsenio off the coast of Castellón on the morning of 17 October 1938. On 9 February 1939 she participated in the Nationalist occupation of Menorca, transporting troops there. On 5 March 1939, she proceeded with several other Nationalist ships toward the Province of Murcia, Spain, in anticipation of an anti-communist revolt that was taking place at the Cartagena Naval Base in Cartagena. The revolt was put down without Huesca taking any action.

After the Spanish Civil War ended in victory for the Nationalists in 1939, Huesca was incorporated into the post-civil war Spanish Navy. She had proven mechanically unreliable during the conflict, and the Spanish Navy made no attempt to upgrade her capabilities after the civil war. Relegated to use as an auxiliary and training ship, she was stricken from the naval register on 17 August 1953. She subsequently was scrapped.