The wreck of the Roma was discovered by a search team led by engineer Guido Gay, with the assistance of Italian Navy personnel, in the Gulf of Asinara at a depth of 1,000 meters, approximately 16 miles off the Sardinian coast. It was sunk by a German Fritz X anti-ship guided rocket on September 9, 1943, one day after the armistice. The Italian admiral, still confused by the armistice and without clear orders, did not give the order to fire on the approaching German bombers. When he saw them pass beyond a certain angle of fire, he felt reassured, since the inertial bombs would have overtaken him by then. But the bomb dropped by the Germans was, in fact, a guided Fritz X, which managed to hit the Roma on an arbitrary trajectory, sinking her, causing the deaths of 1,352 sailors.
