&sq=&lang=&file=File:Italian_destroyer_Audace_1917.jpg) Audace at Brindisi in 1917.
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| History | |
|---|---|
 Japan | |
| Name | Kawakaze |
| Ordered | 1913 |
| Builder | Yarrow Shipbuilders, Scotstoun, Scotland |
| Laid down | 1 October 1913 |
| Fate | Sold to Italy 3 July 1916 |
 Kingdom of Italy | |
| Acquired | 3 July 1916 |
| Name | Intrepido 5 July 1916 |
| Renamed | Audace 25 September 1916 |
| Launched | 27 September 1916 |
| Completed | 23 December 1916 |
| Commissioned | 1 March 1917 |
| Identification | Pennant number AU, AD |
| Reclassified | Torpedo boat 1 October 1929 |
| Motto | Deorsum numquam ("Never Back Down") |
| Fate | Captured by Germany 12 September 1943 |
 Nazi Germany | |
| Name | TA20 |
| Acquired | 12 September 1943 |
| Fate | Sunk 1 November 1944 |
| General characteristics (as completed) | |
| Class and type | Urakaze-class destroyer |
| Displacement | 922 t (907 long tons) |
| Length | 87.59 m (287 ft 4 in) |
| Beam | 8.38 m (27 ft 6 in) |
| Draft | 2.5 m (8 ft 2 in) |
| Installed power |
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| Propulsion | 2 shafts, 2 steam turbines |
| Speed | 30 knots (56 km/h; 35 mph) |
| Range | 2,180 nmi (4,040 km; 2,510 mi) at 15 knots (28 km/h; 17 mph) |
| Complement | 5 officers, 113 enlisted men |
| Armament |
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Audace was a destroyer of the Italian Regia Marina (Royal Navy). Originally, the Imperial Japanese Navy ordered her as the Urakaze-class Kawakaze, but the Japanese sold her to the Kingdom of Italy in 1916 while she was under construction. Commissioned in 1917, she played an active role in the Adriatic campaign of World War I. During the interwar period, she operated in the Adriatic, Aegean, Mediterranean, and Red seas and was reclassified as a torpedo boat in 1929.
Audace took part in the Italian intervention in the Spanish Civil War in 1937 and served during the late 1930s as the command ship for the radio-controlled target ship San Marco. Rearmed for convoy escort and patrol duties when Fascist Italy entered World War II in 1940, she served in the Mediterranean campaign. When Italy surrendered to the Allies in 1943, she was captured by Nazi Germany and thereafter served in the Kriegsmarine as TA20, operating as a minelayer and escort ship in the Adriatic campaign until she was sunk by a pair of British destroyers late in 1944.