Rearmed for convoy escort and patrol duties when Fascist Italy entered World War II in 1940, she served in the Mediterranean campaign.

When Italy surrendered to the Allies in 1943, she was captured by Nazi Germany and thereafter served in the Kriegsmarine as TA20, operating as a minelayer and escort ship in the Adriatic campaign until she was sunk by a pair of British destroyers late in 1944.

Construction was delayed by a backlog of previous orders and then by the outbreak of World War I,[10] which the United Kingdom entered on 4 August 1914.

[11][12] Italy entered the war on the side of the Allies in May 1915, and the Italians, desperately short of destroyers, began negotiations with the Japanese to acquire Kawakaze.

[8] During her voyage to Brindisi, she escorted the Italian submarines H1 and H2, which had just arrived in Italy from their construction yard in Canada, from Messina to Taranto.

[14] On the night of 13–14 August 1917 Audace left Venice with Animoso, Ardente, Giuseppe Cesare Abba, and the destroyers Carabiniere, Francesco Stocco, Giovanni Acerbi, Giuseppe Sirtori, Pontiere, and Vincenzo Giordano Orsini to intercept an Austro-Hungarian force made up of the destroyers Dinara, Reka, Sharfschutze, Streiter, and Velebit and six torpedo boats which had supported an air raid by 32 aircraft against the fortress of Venice, killing 14 people and injuring around 30 others.

[14] On 29 September 1917 Audace — serving as flagship of a squadron commanded by Capitano di fregata (Frigate Captain) Arturo Ciano, a future admiral — put to sea with Ardente, Ardito, and a second formation made up of Francesco Stocco, Giovanni Acerbi, Giuseppe Cesare Abba, Vincenzo Giordano Orsini, and the scout cruiser Sparviero to support a bombing raid by 10 Italian airplanes against Pola.

They encountered an Austro-Hungarian force composed of Streiter, Velebit, the destroyers Huszár and Turul, and four torpedo boats on a similar mission against an Italian airbase.

Another Austro-Hungarian destroyer took her in tow and both sides returned to port after an inconclusive exchange of fire inside the minefields later that night during the predawn hours of 30 September.

[14] On 16 November 1917 Audace, Animoso, Ardente, Francesco Stocco, Giovanni Acerbi, Giuseppe Cesare Abba, and Vincenzo Giordano Orsini got underway to respond to a bombardment carried out by the Austro-Hungarian coastal defense ships Wien and Budapest against Italian artillery batteries and other coastal defenses at Cortellazzo, near the mouth of the Piave River.

[14] On 18 November 1917 Audace, Animoso, Ardente, and Giuseppe Cesare Abba bombarded the Austrian-Hungarian lines on the Italian front between Caorle and Revedoli.

[14] On 10 February 1918, Audace, Animoso, and Giuseppe Cesare Abba departed Venice to participate in a raid on Bakar (known to the Italians as Buccari) on the coast of Austria-Hungary.

[16] While Giovanni Acerbi remained behind to assist Francesco Stocco, the Austro-Hungarians withdrew toward Pola and the Italians resumed operations in support of their own torpedo boats.

[8][14][18] On 7 November 1918, Audace visited Zadar (known to the Italians as Zara) to land a company of sailors and deliver supplies to the local population.

Escorted by the coastal torpedo boats 16 OS and 68 PN, she returned to Trieste on 10 November with the King of Italy, Victor Emmanuel III, and Generals Armando Diaz and Pietro Badoglio aboard.

[8][14] On 23 December 1918 she came to the assistance of the British merchant ship Queen Elizabeth, which had been damaged by a mine in the Adriatic Sea off Šibenik (known to the Italians as Sebenico).

[8] With King Victor Emmanuel III, Minister of the Navy Alberto del Bobo, and President of the Chamber of Deputies Giuseppe Marcora aboard, she met the formation of former Austro-Hungarian Navy ships ceded to Italy as war reparations as those ships steamed from Pola to Venice on 24 March 1919.

[8][14] From September 1920 to June 1921 Audace was assigned to the Levant Division, based at Greek-occupied Smyrna on the Aegean Sea coast of Anatolia, before she was transferred to Šibenik.

[8] In August 1923 she steamed to Tangier on a highly confidential mission with a marshal and 12 Carabinieri aboard in response to a public order incident involving Italian citizens and the police of the city's International Administration.

[8] Assigned to the Special Division and placed in reserve, Audace was reclassified as a torpedo boat on 1 October 1929, subsequently operating in the northern Adriatic Sea.

Audace left Trieste on 9 September, called at Venice, and then got back underway, intending to reach an Italian- or Allied-controlled port in southern Italy.

They augmented her anti-aircraft armament, giving her 20 Breda guns in 10 twin mounts, and assigned her to escort, anti-partisan, and minelaying work in the Adriatic Sea.

The first stage of the project, the "Audace Expedition," occurred at the end of 2015, when divers visited the wreck to verify its status and photograph and capture video footage of it.