Wreck of RM Archimede

 Second World War 1939-1945, shipwreck, submarine

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RM Archimede was a Brin Class Submarine in service with the Italian Regia Marina during the Second World War, fighting for the Axis. Commissioned into service in late 1939, the Archimede patrolled the Mediterranean peacefully for only a few months before Italy declared War on France and England in June 1940. Assigned to operated in East Africa, the Archimede fought the British Navy in the Red Sea until the collapse of Italian forces in Italian East Africa in November 1941.

Escaping East Africa by way of the Cape Horn, the Archimede and her crew returned to Europe and joined the subs of the German Kriegsmarine at Bordeaux for the Battle of the Atlantic against Allied Merchant and Naval convoys. Conducting several war patrols to the South American Coast, the Archimede notched several kills to her war record on unescorted merchant ships. On one such patrol, the Archimede was operating on the surface near a convoy convergence point off Brazil when she was spotted by crews in a patrolling US Catalina Flying Boat on April 15th, 1943.

The Archimede's Captain elected to dive his boat rather than remain surfaced to fight off the American plane with his anti-aircraft guns within minutes the Italian sub was diving beneath the Atlantic in hopes of eluding her attacker. The American PBY closed on the diving sub at top speed and her bombardier dropped her load of depth charges directly over the path of the Archimede. The bombs bracketed the diving sub and outpaced her dive before detonating, causing massive damage to the submarine's double hull and opening up her seams to the waters of the Atlantic. An emergency ballast blow to return the Archimede to the surface failed to check the sub's plunge, and shortly after mid-morning on April 15th, 1943 the RN Archimede sank at this location with all 58 of her crew.