Inigo Campioni

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Inigo Campioni
Inigo Campioni in 1940.
Life Member of the Senate
In office
1939–1944
MonarchVictor Emmanuel III
Personal details
Born(1878-11-14)14 November 1878
Viareggio, Tuscany, Kingdom of Italy
Died24 May 1944(1944-05-24) (aged 65)
Parma, Italian Social Republic
Resting placeBari, Italy
Military service
AllegianceKingdom of Italy
Branch/serviceRegia Marina ("Royal Navy")
Years of service1896–1944
RankAmmiraglio di squadra (Squadron admiral)
Commands
Battles/wars

Inigo Campioni (14 November 1878 – 24 May 1944) was an

Italian Royal Navy (Regia Marina) during World War II. He was later executed by the Italian Social Republic
for refusing to collaborate.

Birth and early career

Campioni was born in

sublieutenant) in 1898[2] and then to tenente di vascello (ship-of-the-line lieutenant) in 1905.[3]

Campioni participated in the

officer aboard the armored cruiser Amalfi.[3]

World War I

World War I began in 1914, and Italy entered the war on the side of Allies in May 1915. Early in the war, Campioni served aboard the battleships Conte di Cavour and Andrea Doria. He was promoted to capitano di corvetta corvette captain in 1916 and became commanding officer of the destroyer Ardito, which under his command escorted numerous convoys to the Adriatic Sea and served with distinction in a naval engagement in the northern Adriatic in September 1917. For the latter action, Campioni received the Bronze Medal of Military Valor. In December 1918, just after the conclusion of the war, he received the War Merit Cross.[3]

Interwar years

After World War I, Campioni was promoted to capitano di fregata (

naval attaché to France in Paris, then from 3 April 1929 to 24 October 1929 he commanded the battleship Duilio. After leaving Duilio, he served a, chief of staff of the First Fleet from 25 October 1929 to 9 May 1930, embarked on the heavy cruiser Trieste. From 10 May 1930 to 16 May 1931 he served as commanding officer of the heavy cruiser Trento.[3]

Campioni achieved

Second Italo-Abyssinian War of 1935–1936.[3]

Campioni was promoted to ammiraglio di squadra (squadron admiral) in 1936 and in 1938 he assumed the post of Deputy Chief of Staff of the Navy. Held in high regard as the most promising officer in the Regia Marina,[1] he became commander of the 1st Naval Squadron — the Italian main battlefleet — on 15 August 1939 with the battleship Giulio Cesare as his flagship. In 1939 he also became a Senator of the Kingdom of Italy.[3]

World War II

Mediterranean campaign

convoys and handling his superior force too cautiously during the latter battle, he was relieved of command on 8 December 1940 — to be succeeded by Angelo Iachino — and returned to the post of Deputy Chief of Staff of the Navy.[3] He did, however, become a Commander of the Military Order of Savoy for his achievements from June 1940 through July 1941.[4]

On 15 July 1941, Campioni was appointed governor of the

Italian Aegean Islands (or Italian Dodecanese) and made commander of all Axis armed forces operating in that area. In November 1941, he reached retirement age and was transferred to the naval auxiliary, although he remained on active duty as governor and commander in the Aegean.[3]

Dodecanese campaign

Campioni was at his headquarters on the island of

German conquest of the Aegean Islands that immediately followed the armistice. On 11 September 1943, with German forces advancing and the German Luftwaffe threatening to bomb the city of Rhodes, he signed the surrender of the Italian garrison on Rhodes to German forces, who captured him.[1]

Imprisonment and execution

The Germans placed Campioni in a

prisoner-of-war camp at Schokken (now Skoki) in Poland. In January 1944, they transported him to the northern portion of Italy administered by the Italian Social Republic, a German client regime led by Benito Mussolini, which took custody of him and jailed him at Verona.[1] Campioni refused repeated offers to collaborate with the Italian Social Republic. He based his decision on his view that the Italian Social Republic government was illegal and that Italy's legitimate government remained the Kingdom of Italy, which controlled the southern part of the country
and had switched sides and joined the Allies.

As a result of Campioni's stance, an Italian Social Republic

firing squad
. The tribunal downgraded the charge from high treason to "harming the interests of the state," allowing the two admirals to face the more honorable death of being shot in the chest rather than in the back.

The Italian Social Republic offered Campioni a pardon on the condition that he recognize it as Italy's legitimate government, but he rejected the pardon and he and Mascherpa were executed by a firing squad composed of youths aged 17 and 18 in the city square at Parma on 24 May 1944.[3][6][7] The Italian Republic posthumously awarded Campioni the Gold Medal of Military Valor in November 1947.[1] He is buried in the military cemetery at Bari, Italy.[4]

Awards and honours

"As governor and commander of the Armed Forces of the Italian Aegean islands found himself, in the crucial period of the armistice, at the head of one of the most difficult, distant, and vulnerable areas. Having fallen into the hands of the enemy following the occupation of his command headquarters, he repeatedly refused to collaborate with them or in any case to join an illegal government. Tried and condemned by an extraordinary tribunal for having carried out the orders received from the legitimate authorities and for having kept faith with his soldier's oath, he maintained a proud and firm demeanor, refusing to sign the request for mercy and to give even formal membership to the Italian Social Republic, up to the supreme sacrifice of life. He fell while commanding the firing squad himself, after having declared that 'one must know how to offer one's life to one's country at any moment, because there is nothing higher and more sacred than the homeland.' Aegean-Northern Italy, 1941–1944. "
—9 November 1947[8]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ a b c d e "Headlines: Error Page". www.historyandtheheadlines.abc-clio.com. Retrieved 15 April 2018.
  2. ^ Stewart, p. 57
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i "Inigo Campioni - Marina Militare". www.marina.difesa.it (in Italian). Retrieved 15 April 2018.
  4. ^ a b Stewart, p. 58.
  5. ^ F. W. Deakin, Storia della Repubblica di Salò, Turin, Einaudi, 1968, p. 678 (in Italian).
  6. ^ "1944: Admiral Inigo Campioni". 24 May 2012. Retrieved 15 April 2018.
  7. ISBN 978-1-84832-115-1
    .
  8. ^ a b Quirinale website: decoration details (in Italian)

References

External links
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