RN Aquilone (1927) built by the Odero Shipyard, entered into service on December 3, 1927. In 1929 RN Aquilone constituted, together with the twins RN Turbine, RN Euro, and RN Nembo, the II Squadron of the 1st Flotilla of the I Division of Torpedoes, framed in the 1st Naval Squadron, based in La Spezia, the ship participated in some cruises in the Mediterranean from 1929 to 1932.
The crew of RN Aquilone was commanded by Lieutenant Commander Enrico Baroni.
In 1931 RN Aquilone, Turbine, Ostro, Borea, Daniele Manin, Giovanni Nicotera, and Esploratore Pantera formed the 1st Battleship Destroyer Flotilla assigned to the 2nd Division of the 1st Squadron.
In 1932 the same year RN Aquilone accidentally hit Zeffiro with one of its torpedoes (the weapon was defective).
In 1934 RN Aquilone, together with Turbine, Euro, and Nembo, constituted the VIII Destroyer Squadron, assigned, together with the IV (composed by the other four units of the Turbine-class) and the II Naval Division (heavy cruisers RN Fiume and Gorizia).
In 1936-1937, the destroyer took part in the Spanish Civil War.
On 15 December 1938, the destroyer risked capsizing due to rough seas and suffered serious damage, including the removal of a cage containing depth charges and several doors of the dynamo and machine rooms, as well as damage to the motorboat, which risked ending up in the sea.
In November 1939 RN Aquilone returned to Italy, reaching Fiume, where, with the crew reduced to one third, it was subjected to work in dry dock, which included the repair of damage caused by storms. In April, RN Aquilone went to Tobruk to do shooting exercises, both by day and by night, with night navigations along the coast. Starting from 20 May 1940, RN Aquilone participated in the mine operations of the access routes to Tripoli, Tobruk and Benghazi. Between 6 June and 10 July, the four units of the Squadron, together with the minelayer Barletta, laid 14 minefields in Libyan waters, for a total of 540 mines.
At the entrance of Italy in the Second World War, RN Aquilone, Turbine, Euro, and Nembo of the Turbine-class were already old and had a lower top speed because with all the service that made the hull was so worn that it showed that the ship could not reach 36 knots but arrived at a maximum speed of 31 knots.
RN Aquilone from 11 June fought against several British air raids at Tobruk, the ship used her 40 mm/39 Vickers-Terni mod.1915/1917 guns against the enemy planes, the destroyer was not hit.
Although never hit directly, the destroyer had numerous holes in her hull, caused by shrapnel and bombs falling nearby.
On 14 June 1940 RN Aquilone bombarded the British positions at Sollum, together with Nembo and Turbine.
On June 26 the destroyer participated in a second naval bombardment of Sollum. These attacks served to weaken the British defenses in order to make an Italian incursion possible.
On 28 June 1940 the crew of RN Aquilone witnessed the shooting down of Italo Balbo's plane over the skies of Tobruk.
RN Aquilone with its sister Turbine
In Tobruk during the torpedo attacks of 5 and 19 July 1940, the destroyers RN Zeffiro, Nembo, and Ostro, as well as the steamers Manzoni and Sereno, were sunk, while Euro and the steamers Liguria and Serenitas were seriously damaged. RN Aquilone remained unharmed, and at the end of August Aquilone was transferred to Benghazi, since Tobruk was by now considered too exposed to air attacks.
On 17 September at 20:15, RN Aquilone and Turbine sailed to Tripoli, again with the intent to decentralize part of the ships concentrated in a port, that of Benghazi, also too exposed to air attacks.
Shortly after having passed through the entrance of the port, at 20:45, when the two units had already passed the area indicated by the buoy of more than one mile, RN Aquilone, which was proceeding behind Turbine, was shaken by two explosions in rapid succession, one in the middle of the ship and one at the stern, tipping over and finding itself with its bridge lying on the sea's surface. The rudder was jammed, preventing it from manoeuvring, and some men were thrown into the sea by the detonations, which made two rafts unusable.
The ship had been hit by the explosion of two magnetic mines, but at the time many thought it was an attack by aircraft, so much so that the anti-aircraft emplacments on land opened fire, while Turbine began accelerating and zigzagging.
Turbine, after having reduced speed, tried to call Aquilone that resulted in useless as action was made to continue for Tripoli, while from Benghazi came out the units destined to the rescues. On Aquilone, irreparably damaged, it was initially ordered to move to the coast, then, again by order of Commander Agostini, the machines were stopped and the aft ammunition depots were flooded, then the boats were put to sea, one of which, after being lowered, capsized because of the rough sea. As a result of the explosion, the starboard depth charges fell into the water, but thanks to the shallow depth (13-15 m) they did not detonate. The abandonment of the ship, surrounded by fuel oil leaking from the tanks, took place in an orderly manner, thus limiting losses.
After having heartened the crew, Captain Agostini remained on board, until he was dragged into the sea by a wave. Bumping against the bottom, Aquilone laid down on the seabed.
Despite the rapidity of the sinking and the rough sea, the human losses were rather limited, consisting of 4 dead, 9 missing and 20 injured (the latter caused mainly by the impact against the ship's structures immediately after the explosions).
The search - directed, starting from about 23:30, by Commander Agostini, decorated on that occasion with the MAVM (Silver Medal for Military Valor), recovered from a lifeboat of the old torpedo boat Abba after two and a half hours spent adrift - lasted until 2 a.m. on the 18th and led to the rescue of the remaining crew (some shipwrecked, in the water or on rafts, were found after six hours from the sinking), then brought on board the hospital ship California and to the Colonial Hospital of Benghazi. After what happened to Aquilone the port of Benghazi was temporarily blocked: entry and exit of any ship was forbidden until the arrival, from Italy, of a magnetic minesweeper that took care of the demining.
Two survivors of the crew of Aquilone, G. Giannoni and P. L. Fazzi, later donated the crowning light, a short section of the anchor chain and the bow star of Aquilone to the Museum of the Italian Military Memorial of El Alamein.
