Impero

Impero was the fourth Littorio-class battleship built for Italy's Regia Marina (Royal Navy) during the Second World War. She was named after the Italian word for "empire", in this case referring to the newly (1936) conquered Italian Empire in East Africa (Somaliland, Eritrea and Ethiopia territories) as a result of the Second Italo-Abyssinian War. She was constructed under the order of the 1938 Naval Expansion Program, along with her sister ship Roma. Impero was laid down in May 1938 and launched in November 1939. The entrance of Italy into World War II forced the Regia Marina to refocus it...