Vincenzo Giordano Orsini was the third of four Giuseppe Sirtori-class destroyers built for the Italian Regia Marina (Royal Navy) during World War I.

Reclassified as a torpedo boat in 1929, she was serving in the Red Sea Flotilla when Italy entered World War II in June 1940.

[1] Vincenzo Giordano Orsini was laid down at the Cantieri navali Odero shipyard in Sestri Ponente, Italy, on 2 February 1916.

[3] On 29 September 1917, Vincenzo Giordano Orsini, now under the command of Capitano di fregata (Frigate Captain) Vaccaneo, who also served as the commander of her destroyer squadron, put to sea with the rest of her squadron (Franceco Stocco, Giovanni Acerbi, and Giuseppe Cesare Abba), the scout cruiser Sparviero (flagship of Prince Ferdinando of Udine, who had overall command of the formation), and a destroyer squadron made up of Ardente, Ardito, and Audace to support a bombing attack by 10 Italian Royal Army Caproni aircraft against Pola in Austria-Hungary.

[3] According to Austro-Hungarian sources, Sparviero was hit and suffered serious damage, after which she left the battle line, prompting the other Italian ships to cease fire and withdraw as well, while on the Austro-Hungarian side Velebit was damaged by an Italian projectile which disabled her steering system and started a fire.

[3] At 10:35 on 16 November 1917, the Austro-Hungarian coastal defense ships Budapest and Wien arrived off Cortellazzo, Italy, and began a bombardment targeting the Italian lines and artillery batteries.

Vincenzo Giordano Orsini departed Venice with Animoso, Ardente, Audace, Francesco Stocco, Giovanni Acerbi, and Giuseppe Cesare Abba to counter the bombardment.

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.

On the morning of 4 November, Vincenzo Giordano Orsini, Francesco Stocco, Giovanni Acerbi, and Giuseppe Sirtori got underway from Venice with the battleship Emanuele Filiberto, flagship of Contrammiraglio (Counter Admiral) Guglielmo Rainer, in command of the operation, to take possession of Fiume.

On land, the commanding officer of TB 82 tried to raise the Yugoslav flag at the fort on the island alongside the Italian one on behalf of the local Croatian population to declare the sovereignty of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (later renamed the Kingdom of Yugoslavia) over Lošinj, and on 6 November the crew of TB 82 also raised a Yugoslav flag at their barracks.

[7] However, Cavagnari managed to persuade the Yugoslavian soldiers to lower their flag and to allow themselves to be disarmed, then made them embark on TB 82, which took them to Fiume on 7 November.

[7] In the days following the armistice, Vincenzo Giordano Orsini also made a voyage from Venice to Fiume, crossing for the first time stretches of water containing minefields.

[6][9] Before Italy entered World War I in May 1915, it had made a pact with the Allies, the Treaty of London of 1915, in which it was promised all of the Austrian Littoral, but not the city of Fiume (known in Croatian as Rijeka).

On 2 February 1920, Vincenzo Giordano Orsini and the transport Città di Roma were steaming from Ancona, Italy, to Pola with a cargo of supplies and ammunition for the Regia Marina when D'Annunzio's legionaries captured them and diverted them to Fiume.

[12][13] During the latter half of the 1920s, her seco-in-command was Tenente di vascello (Ship-of-the-Line Lieutenant) Francesco Dell'Anno, a future recipient of the Gold Medal of Military Valor.

With tensions running high between still-neutral Fascist Italy and the Allies, Vincenzo Giordano Orsini — by then stationed with the Regia Marina's Red Sea Flotilla at Massawa in the Eritrea Governorate of Italian East Africa — encountered the Royal Australian Navy light cruiser HMAS Hobart in the Red Sea on 3 June 1940.

At the beginning of April 1941, Allied troops gradually occupied the Eritrea Governorate and Massawa was close to falling to them.

[19][20][21] On 8 April 1941,[1] with the ship out of ammunition and unable to reach any friendly or neutral port, Vincenzo Giordano Orsini's commanding officer ordered his crew to scuttle her.

[19][20][21][23] Her wreck settled in 27 metres (89 ft) of water 0.5 nautical miles (0.9 km; 0.6 mi) east of the Abd el Kader peninsula, not far from the Naval Command of Massawa dock.