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Marina Nazionale Repubblicana

Marina Nazionale Repubblicana
War flag of the Italian Social Republic.svg
Active 1943–1945
Country  Italian Social Republic
Allegiance Axis Power
Branch Navy
Engagements Second world war

The Marina Nazionale Repubblicana was the navy of the Italian Social Republic, a German puppet state in Italy.

The Marina Nazionale Repubblicana was formally created in late September 1943, following the establishment of the Italian Social Republic. Most of the Regia Marina fleet, however, after the Armistice of Cassibile between Italy and the Allies on 3 September 1943, had sailed to Allied-controlled ports (chiefly Malta), and the few ships that remained in Italian ports, most of them undergoing maintenance or repair, were either scuttled or captured by the German forces and incorporated into the Kriegsmarine. The MNR was thus left without a real fleet; even ships abandoned during construction in Northern Italian shipyards (among them many Gabbiano-class corvettes and Ariete-class torpedo boats) were completed for the German Kriegsmarine, that refused to transfer any of them to the MNR.

The first Chief of Staff of the MNR was Admiral Antonio Legnani, who however died in a car crash less than a month after the creation of the MNR. He was succeeded by Captain Ferruccio Ferrini.Junio Valerio Borghese's Decima Flottiglia MAS was formally part of the MNR, but it operated as a de facto independent unit under Borghese's undisputed leadership. Ferrini did not tolerate this independence; he accused Borghese of having contacts with the Allies and the anti-Communist partisans, and of conspiring to depose Mussolini and replace him at the head of the RSI. In January 1944 Borghese was summoned by Mussolini and placed under arrest, but this immediately brought the Decima MAS personnel on the verge of mutiny; the situation settled after Borghese was released, following German intervention.


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