Italian submarine Comandante Cappellini

Comandante Cappellini or Cappellini was a World War II Italian Marcello-class submarine built for the Italian Royal Navy (Regia Marina). Operating under the BETASOM command, Comandante Cappellini made war patrols in the Atlantic Ocean sinking or damaging 31,000 tons of enemy shipping. She participated in the rescue of the survivors of the Laconia in September 1942. Was later converted to the transport of strategic materials to and from Japan. After Italy's capitulation in 1943, the submarine, was captured by the Imperial Japanese Navy and handed over to Germany at Sabang on 10 September 1943. Commissioned into the Kriegsmarine as foreign U-boat UIT-24 and assigned to 12th U-boat Flotilla with a mixed Italian and German crew. She remained in the Pacific despite failed attempts to return to the 12th flotilla base at Bordeaux, France.

At Germany's surrender in May 1945, the submarine was taken over and commissioned into the Imperial Japanese Navy as I-503 (its crew now a mixture of Italians, Germans, and Japanese) and shuttled between ports as a transport submarine. However, despite this non-combat role, the submarine saw combat in August 1945 when it shot down an American bomber. At Japan's surrender that same month, she was seized by the United States Navy, which scuttled her off Kobe on 16 April 1946.