Once back in Italy, de la Penne and Bianchi learned that neither of the other two crews had been successful due to faults with the ‘pigs’ and that two of their number were now in British hands. Yet despite the ultimate failure of the mission, Borghese (awarded the Italian Gold Medal for his part) was encouraged by certain aspects of the raid. It had been proved possible to sail into the Bay of Algeciras, right past Gibraltar, without detection, and the British defences had been found to be far from impregnable. It was clear that the ‘pig’ operators were adversely affected from having to spend days cooped up in the submarine prior to launching their torpedoes and in future Borghese decided they would join them just prior to a raid. But his most pressing concern was to discover the causes of the three pigs’ malfunctions and rectify them as soon as possible.
While the Underwater Division of the Tenth Light Flotilla returned to its base at Bocca di Serchio, the Surface Division began preparing for an attack against British shipping at anchor in Souda Bay, on the north-west coast of Crete. The raid was carried out in March 1941 by six E-boats packed with explosives, and the results were spectacular. As well as the sinking of the cruiser York, three merchant vessels were sunk or badly damaged at the cost of six pilots captured. Disturbed by the manner of the audacious attack, the British officially blamed the sinking on German aircraft, but behind the scenes the Admiralty ordered an urgent investigation into the raid in a desperate effort to prevent future assaults.
Satisfied that the shortcomings that had bedevilled the attack on Gibraltar in October had been remedied, Borghese ordered a new mission against the British base in May 1941. The submarine Scire sailed from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic, arriving at Cadiz on 23 May. There it took on board the operators of the ‘pigs’, all of whom were fresh and fit, having been spared the voyage in the Scire. Three days later Borghese piloted the submarine past Gibraltar to the northern end of Algeciras Bay and the three crews embarked upon their mission. A last-minute intelligence report from the Italian Supreme Command had informed the saboteurs that there were no Royal Navy ships at anchor in Gibraltar, but there were plenty of merchant vessels waiting to be sunk.
But once more fate was unkind to the Italians. The first crew aborted their attempt almost immediately after leaving the submarine when they realisedd their vessel was damaged. On the second ‘pig’ one of the men got into difficulties with his breathing apparatus, and the third ‘pig’ inexplicably sank just as the crew were preparing to attach the warhead to the hull of a British ship. It was a bitter disappointment for Borghese and his men, the only saving grace the fact that all six men evaded capture and eventually returned to Bocca di Serchio.
However, the grief Borghese felt at this failure was eclipsed in May, when the Surface Division struck Malta, attacking targets in La Valletta Harbour and the bay of Marsa Muscetto. Encouraged by their success at Souda Bay, another 17 E-boats had set out to ram British vessels, but both attacks failed disastrously. The Surface Division was all but wiped out, with 15 men dead, 18 taken prisoner and ten E-boats sunk or captured.
Among the dead were Lieutenant-Commander Giorgio Giobbe, leader of the Surface Division, and Commanding Officer Vittorio Moccagatta, in overall command of the Tenth Light Flotilla. Borghese was promoted to lieutenant-commander and placed in temporary charge of the Flotilla and his first act was to appoint Salvatore Todaro as the new CO of the Surface Division. Then Borghese set about restoring morale to a unit reeling after the failure at Gibraltar and the catastrophe at Malta.
I subjected the veteran pilots of the Serchio, who were anxious to renew their former experiments with greater chances of success, and the recruits who had since been coming in, full of the enthusiasm of neophytes, to exercises of the most concentrated, thorough and rigorous description. The object was to put them in a condition to overcome the difficulties which had in the previous operations prevented successful action.14
As well as intensifying and improving training methods, Borghese liaised with several naval departments to produce some innovations for the unit; acoustic and incendiary mines were developed to spread in harbour entrances, as was the ‘bug’, a 6.6lb (3kg) explosive device in a small circular casing that could be clamped to the hull of ships and set off using a timer. These ‘bugs’ would be carried in a shoulder pouch by frogmen, part of a new unit of ‘assault swimmers’. Each frogman would wear ‘long, rubber fins which gave him greater speed during approach and enabled him to swim and to dive without using his arms’, and a luminous compass strapped to the wrist.
By late September 1941 Borghese judged his unit ready to recommence operations and he decided once more to attack Gibraltar. Despite the fact that they encountered sterner defences in light of their previous visits (including noiseless patrol boats that dropped depth charges at regular intervals at the entrance to the harbour), the Italians managed to sink three British ships: the naval tanker Denby Dale, the merchant ship Durham and the tanker Fiona Shaw.
The news of the mission was greeted with acclaim in Italy, with the six operators receiving the Silver Medal and Borghese being promoted to commander for his success ‘in bringing back his submarine and its crew to the base, despite the difficulties due to determined pursuit by the enemy and to navigation underwater driven to the limit of human endurance’. King Victor Emmanuel paid a visit to the base of the Underwater Division, bringing with him a wild boar from his estate for the men, and telling Borghese that he knew well the problems caused by the currents off Gibraltar because he had fished there many times.
The Italians had first attempted to raid the harbour at Alexandria in August 1940. On that occasion, however, as the submarine Iride and torpedo boat Calipso approached the Egyptian port, they were spotted by a British aircraft returning from a bombing mission. The pilot alerted his command and within minutes three Swordfish torpedo-bombers from the aircraft carrier Eagle attacked the Italian raiders, sinking the Iride.
Eighteen months later, in December 1941, Borghese decided it was time to return to Alexandria with the ‘pigs’ in the hope of inflicting more damage on a navy reeling from the loss of the aircraft carrier Ark Royal (sunk by a German U-boat on 13 November off Gibraltar) and the battleship Barham (which had met a similar fate 12 days later with the loss of 841 men).
The loss of the Barham reduced the number of British battleships in the Mediterranean fleet to two, and so the remaining ships, Queen Elizabeth and Valiant, were ordered into the anchorage at Alexandria. Borghese planned the attack meticulously, studying dozens of air reconnaissance photographs and acquainting himself with every harbour defence deployed by the British. Although he had his men train relentlessly for the raid, in the conditions that best replicated those they were likely to encounter in Alexandria, Borghese told none of the operators the actual target; secrecy was paramount if the mission was to have any chance of success.
The men chosen for the mission stood little chance of escaping once they had planted their explosives, so Borghese gathered them together to ask for volunteers, saying: ‘Now, boys, we want three crews for an operation in the very near future. All I can tell you about it is that it differs from Gibraltar operations in the fact that return from it is extremely problematical. Is there anyone who would like to take part in it?’ Every one of the men raised their hands, so it was left to Borghese to select the six operators. Those chosen, he recalled, were ‘the pick of the bunch’ and included Luigi Durand de la Penne and Emilio Bianchi.
On 3 December the Scire left La Spezia with its crew still ignorant of their destination. The operators travelled separately by aircraft, rendezvousing with the submarine on the Aegean island of Leros on the 12th, although they were quartered on land as if they were nothing to do with the Scire. Borghese briefed the men the following day, updating them on weather reports, harbour defences and showing them the very latest aerial photos of Alexandria.
Admiral Biancheri, Commander-in-Chief of the Aegean naval sector, arrived on Leros and requested a demonstration of th
e human torpedoes of which he had heard so much. Borghese looked at him in disbelief and flatly refused in case British spies were present on the island.
The Scire left Leros on 14 December and proceeded south, submerged during the day and surfacing only at night to charge the batteries and circulate some fresh air inside the vessel. Borghese was faced with the challenge of depositing the raiders within striking distance of their targets while avoiding the considerable British defences: as well as a minefield 20 miles north-west of the harbour, there were 180ft-deep anti-submarine nets six miles from Alexandria, plus detector cables and other mines in scattered positions.
Not only were these obstacles to be surmounted, but it was crucial to the success of the mission that the human torpedoes were launched at the precise point calculated; any discrepancy would irreparably damage their chances of accomplishing their task, for they had limited amounts of oxygen. Navigating in such a situation, reflected Borghese, required ‘the exactitude of a draughtsman working with compass and ruler’. He had to take into account the drifting caused by strong underwater currents and the necessity of travelling for long periods underwater at a great depth.
While Borghese and the crew of the Scire piloted the vessel towards Alexandria, the six operators reposed and reserved their energy for the imminent challenge. De la Penne slept for most of the time, waking only to eat copious amounts of fruit cake, and Emilio Bianchi was equally relaxed. ‘In Alexandria, thanks to our secret service and scouts, we knew perfectly where the battleships were and how to operate,’ he recalled of his state of mind prior to the mission. ‘We just had to repeat what we had done during our drills.’15
On 18 December Borghese received an intelligence report confirming that the Valiant and Queen Elizabeth were still at anchor in Alexandria. On the same day he wrote in his log that they were ‘continually regulating our movements in accordance with the rise of the seabed, till at 1840 hours, we found ourselves at the pre-arranged point, 1.3 miles by 356 [degrees] from the lighthouse at the west mole of the commercial harbour of Alexandria at a depth of 15 metres’.
Using his periscope to check the coast was clear, once it was dark Borghese surfaced so that he could emerge onto the coning tower. From his position he was able to identify some of Alexandria’s more prominent buildings and confirm that, after 16 hours of blind navigation, they were at the exact pre-arranged point. When the three crews were in their suits and ready to set sail in the ‘pigs’, Borghese wished them luck and watched as first Captain Antonio Marceglia and Petty Officer Spartaco Schergat departed, followed in quick succession by Captain Vincenzo Martellotta and Petty Officer Mario Marino in the second ‘pig’ and de la Penne and Bianchi in the third. With the three crews on their way towards the harbour, Borghese dived and began the long journey back to Italy.
Immediately after leaving the Scire, the three ‘pigs’ had a stroke of good fortune when three British destroyers hove into view. The harbour’s net gates opened and the guide lights went on, allowing the raiders to slip unseen into Alexandria ahead of the enemy vessels. Though the three torpedoes had lost one another in the black water, each knew their own orders: de la Penne and Bianchi were to attack the Valiant, Marceglia and Schergat the Queen Elizabeth and Martellotta and Marino a loaded oil tanker.
De la Penne and Bianchi soon saw ahead of them the huge hull of the 32,000-ton battleship. Encountering its protective anti-torpedo netting, Bianchi cut their way through it, and they approached their target. But the exertion of dealing with the netting had exhausted Bianchi to such an extent that he fainted, slipping from the ‘pig’ and floating to the surface. Regaining consciousness, he clung to a floating buoy out of sight of the British sentries patrolling the deck of the Valiant.
Under the surface, de la Penne had noticed the disappearance of Bianchi but his more pressing concern was for the ‘pig’, which for some reason had dropped like a stone to the sea bed. Diving down to investigate, de la Penne discovered that a steel wire had snagged the propeller, and despite his best efforts he was unable to restart the motor. De la Penne was faced with a stark choice: either abort the mission or try to drag the ‘pig’ a few yards so that it was directly beneath the hull of the Valiant. He decided on the latter, as Borghese recounted in his memoirs:
With all his strength, panting and sweating, he dragged at the craft; his goggles became obscured and the mud he was stirring up prevented his reading the compass. His breath began to come in great gasps and it became difficult to breathe at all through the mask, but he stuck to it and made progress. He could hear close above him the noises made aboard the ship, especially the sound of an alternating pump, which he used to find his direction. After 40 minutes of superhuman effort, making a few inches at every pull, he at last bumped his head against the hull. He made a cursory survey of the position: he seemed to be at about the middle of the ship, an excellent spot for causing maximum damage.16
In fact the torpedo was underneath the Valiant’s port bulge, abreast A turret, and close to the turret’s shell room and magazine. It was a little after 0300hrs and de la Penne set the fuse on the warhead to explode at 0500hrs. Once he had surfaced de la Penne found Bianchi clinging to the mooring buoy at the bow of the Valiant. They were soon spotted by British sentries above and as the pair waited to be picked up they listened to the guards ‘talking contemptuously about Italians. I called Bianchi’s attention to the probability that in a few hours they would have changed their minds’.17
At 0330hrs a British patrol boat appeared and the two Italians were hauled on board. The officer in command asked them a few rudimentary questions and on the way to shore ‘expressed ironical sympathy with their lack of success’. De la Penne and Bianchi said nothing, and after a brief interrogation conducted in Italian the pair were returned to the Valiant where the ship’s captain, Charles Morgan, was more appreciative of their mission. He wanted to know where they had placed the charge. De la Penne and Bianchi refused to cooperate, so an armed escort placed them in a hold not far from A turret. They were well treated, given a tot of rum and a cigarette, and encouraged to disclose the whereabouts of the charge. Bianchi curled up and went to sleep while de la Penne kept one eye on his watch. At 0450hrs he told his guards he wished to speak to Captain Morgan. In his operational report on the incident de la Penne described subsequent events:
I was taken aft into his presence. I told him that in a few minutes his ship would blow up, that there was nothing he could do about it and that, if he wished, he could still get his crew into a place of safety. He again asked me where I had placed the charge and as I did not reply he had me escorted back into the hold. As we went along I heard the loudspeakers giving orders to abandon ship, as the vessel had been attacked by Italians, and saw people running aft … a few minutes passed (they were infernal ones for me: would the explosion take place?) and then it came. The vessel reared with extreme violence. All the lights went out and the hold became filled with smoke.18
The charge had exploded under the port bulge, holing an area some 60ft by 30ft and causing extensive flooding in several compartments and some electrical damage. De la Penne and Bianchi were taken up on deck, from where they saw the ship begin to list to port some four or five degrees. The two Italians turned their gaze towards the Queen Elizabeth just a few hundred yards away. They could see startled sailors standing in her bows watching the drama on the Valiant. Suddenly a great explosion rent the air and the Queen Elizabeth ‘rose a few inches out of the water and fragments of iron and other objects flew out of her funnel, mixed with oil, which even reached the deck of the Valiant, splashing everyone of us standing on her stern.’
The Queen Elizabeth had been blown up by Marceglia and Schergat in a flawless act of sabotage. Having cut through the anti-submarine net, the pair attached a loop-line from one bilge keel to the other, and fixed their warhead on the line so that it was suspended 5ft beneath the hull of the battleship. It exploded under the ‘B’ boiler room, devastating the ship’s double-bottom struc
ture and inflicting damage to a section of the ship measuring 190ft by 60ft. Compartment by compartment the vessel began flooding up to the main deck level, until eventually the Queen Elizabeth sank to the bottom of Alexandria Harbour.
As a frantic manhunt ensued for the two saboteurs, Marceglia and Schergat swam ashore, slipped off their diving suits and posed as French sailors. The evasion plan required all six operators to rendezvous with an Italian submarine that was lying ten miles offshore from Rosetta, the men having to first steal a boat to make the pick-up point.
Marceglia and Schergat made their way to the railway station where they took a train to Rosetta, 40 miles east of Alexandria. They spent the night in a cheap hotel and the next evening made their way towards the harbour with the intention of stealing a boat. Here their luck ran out and they were stopped by an Egyptian patrol. Identified as Italians, the two saboteurs were handed over to the British.
The last two saboteurs, Martellotta and Marino, successfully destroyed a 16,000-ton oil tanker called the Sagona to complete a night of devastating triumph for the Tenth Light Flotilla, although Borghese himself, sailing back towards Italy, would have to wait more than a week to hear the news. For 39 hours the Scire remained submerged before surfacing and making for Leros, and from there Borghese piloted the vessel to La Spezia. After covering 3,500 miles in 22 days at sea, he arrived home on 29 December. Waiting to welcome them ashore was Admiral Bacci with a telegram from Admiral Riccardi, Under-Secretary of State for the Navy, commending Borghese and his crew for their part in a highly successful mission.
The Daring Dozen Page 21