The RN Folaga (C 16) was delivered to the Regia Marina Italiana and commissioned on 16 February 1943, assigned to the Squadriglia Corvette, she underwent intense training at La Spezia in the spring, and after the training was over, she was repositioned at La Maddalena under the 7° Gruppo Anti-Sommergibile (7°Gruppo A.S.). Before the Italian armistice, she carried out 11 convoy escorts, fire actions against enemy aircraft, and 44 searches of enemy aircraft and enemy underwater units in the Upper Tyrrhenian Sea.
After the armistice of 8 September 1943 when she was in La Spezia, she moved under the new command of the Italian Co-Belligerent to Portoferraio, and left on 10 September, with the twin corvettes RN Ape (C 25) and RN Cormorano (C 13) for a mission to Bastia, where during the navigation they encountered 5 German Motozattere, against which they opened fire, sinking one and damaging the others, after this combat they continued the navigation until reaching Palermo, then under armistice dispositions she was redeployed to Augusta and then Taranto, from October 1943 until the end of the war, she did mainly escort missions to allied convoys in southern Italian waters between Augusta, Naples and the Adriatic, making connections and transports along the Tyrrhenian coast to make up for the deficient conditions of rail traffic.
After the WW2 - Folaga (F-576)
In the post-war period, the RN Folaga (C 16) was used on missions to clear national waters of naval mines depending on the 2°Gruppo Dragaggio, the areas in which she operated in 1946 were the coasts from Civitavecchia to Naples and in 1947-1948 in the waters of Argentario, Elba and Livorno, in the winter of 1948-1949 its activities were limited, consisting of local training sessions with students from the Livorno Naval Academy, in April it began dredging Sardinian waters from Cagliari, and finally in November 1949 it operated in the Upper Adriatic and front of Grado, depending on the 5°Gruppo Dragaggio in Venice.
During the first few years after the war, the RN Folaga (C 16) was put under various workings, after which she was renamed Folaga F-576, for about a year she carried out various activities in the waters of La Spezia, and then she passed to Maridipart, Naples as a departmental ship, with increasingly reduced activity, in 1953 she was assigned to the Command School.
Destiny
After four months of work at the Taranto Arsenal, she was placed in Augusta for training activities, and in 1965 the Folaga F-576 was laid up awaiting decommissioning, due to the Presidential Decree of 1 August 1965.
