Italian - Navy - and Elite in the same sentence? No Way!

The Italian Navy’s special forces did some amazing acts.

I believe the leader of the Italian frogmen that entered Alexandria on December 18, 1941 was actually captured and imprisoned on the very Battleship he had placed bombs under. Ten minutes before the bombs are set to explode, he informed the British captain of his deed, it left enough time to get crew off the ship and not enough time for the British locate the bombs.

listing of ships sunk or crippled by the 10th Light FlotillaNAME TONNAGE LOCATION DATE
Durham 10,900 Tons Gibraltar Sep, 1941
Baron Douglas 3,900 Tons Gibraltar July, 1942
Raven’s Point 1,900 Tons Gibraltar July, 1942
Kaituna 10,000 Tons Mersin July, 1943
Meta 1,600 Tons Gibraltar July, 1942
Camerata 4,900 Tons Gibraltar May, 1943
Stanridge 6,000 Tons Gibraltar Aug, 1943
Queen Elizabeth 32,000 Tons Alexandria Dec, 1941
Valiant 31,000 Tons Alexandria Dec, 1941
Harmattan 4,600 Tons Algiers Dec, 1942
Jervis 1,700 Tons Alexandria Dec, 1941
Mahsud 7,500 Tons Gibraltar May, 1943
Fernplant 7,000 Tons Iskenderun Aug, 1943
Empire Centaur 7,000 Tons Algiers Dec, 1942

The Italian frogmen originally used a Spanish villa that was located 2 miles from Gibraltar. It was owned by an Italian officer married to a Spanish woman named Conchita Ramognino.

This villa held the frogmen who would sneak out into the harbor and attack unsuspecting British warships. But this proved very difficult and costly. The harbor was very well protected by netting, patrol boats and search lights. Because of this difficulty, the Italians decided to use a battered Italian merchant ship docked across the bay of Gibraltar. It was the 4,995 ton Olterra.

The Olterra redesigned for Human Torpedo attacks
Italian frogmen secretly replaced the crew with divers and technicians and built a workshop to house, build and maintain human torpedoes. A door was then cut 6 feet below the surface to allow these 2-man human torpedoes to come and go undetected.

Replacement torpedoes were shipped from Italy disguised as boiler tubes. When the Italian frogmen commenced their attacks on British warships from this location, it proved just as costly. Five out of six frogmen never returned. But when the Italians decided to attack the merchant shipping, which was less protected, they were rewarded with easy prey. Italian frogmen sank or damaged a total of 42,000 tons of Allied shipping.The British never did find out where these frogmen came from or where they gone.

Here you can see members of the 10 X MAS being executed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_mDUlxtRJM

One of the executed guys is yelling “Viva L’italia” (Glory to Italy) before dying.

Also, I’d like you to read the story of this sailor and the crew of the Cappellini
http://www.regiamarina.net/detail_text.asp?nid=294&lid=1

They kept fighting a lost war in order to defend their honor, yet he was accounted as a “traitor” in Italy, like all the Italians that decided to fight 'till the last instead of surrendering.

Thank you Garg. We were great pioneers in this and is not that well documented. Probably because it had to be kept secret and most of them died. Reading the Italian comments most Italians would rather forget about it now!