Lit­to­rio (lat­er Italia) was the first of four fast, mod­ern Ital­ian bat­tle­ships laid down in 1934-42. She and two sis­ters, Vit­to­rio Vene­to and Roma, par­tic­i­pat­ed in Mediter­ranean attacks on British con­voys. The fourth, Impero, was seized before com­ple­tion by the Ger­mans and used as a tar­get ves­sel. Fol­low­ing the Ital­ian sur­ren­der in Sep­tem­ber 1943, the three bat­tle­ships were sent to Mal­ta, but Ger­man bombers sank Roma en route. The two sur­vivors, ulti­mate­ly Amer­i­can and British war prizes, were bro­ken up for scrap in 1952-54. (Bun­de­sarchiv, Bild 183-S54286 / CC-BY-SA 3.0)