The first attack on the British naval stronghold of Alexandria was planned for 25-26 August 1940, with the support of the submarine IRIDE by five attack teams riding the ‘Maiali”. They were:

Teseo and Pedretti
Toschi and Lazzari
Pacagnini and Birindelli
de la Penne and Lazzaroni
and one other team in reserve

The destroyer CALIPSO was to carry the crews from Messina to the Gulf of Bomba where the submarine would be waiting with the ‘Maiali’ already loaded. Fortunately for the British, an aerial attack on the port of Tobruk found the IRIDE in a vulnerable mooring position and scored a direct hit. Along with IRIDE, the large support ship MONTE GARGANO was also hit and sunk quickly. Members of the Xa helped locate the sunken submarine and, after many exhausting hours of desperate attempts, were finally able to bring seven surviving sailors to the surface. And so the first attempt to penetrate the harbor at Alexandria ended in disaster.

Top: the ‘Maiale’ or Pig, as they were called
Bottom: the battleship HMS VALIANT

The second attack was made on the 29th of September in conjunction with a similar attack on Gibraltar. The submarine GONDAR was to carry the crews just off the entrance to the harbor of Alexandria. There, after having received instructions to abort the mission due to the absence of capital ships in port, GONDAR was detected by British surveillance and attacked. After hours of attack with depth charges and quite a bit of damage, GONDAR made one final attempt to surface. On reaching the surface, the crew quickly scuttled the boat. The entire crew was taken prisoner for the rest of the war. Commander Valerio Borghese, also in command of the botched Gibraltar mission, firmly believed that the British had been warned. There is no indication whether they did.

The next attempt was made on the night of 18 December 1941, when three two-man human torpedoes penetrated the defenses of Alexandria Harbor & planted their charges beneath two battleships (HMS QUEEN ELIZABETH and HMS VALIANT) and also the tanker SAGONA. The teams and ‘Maiali’ had been transported to Alexandria by the submarine SCIRE under Lt. Borghese, and she returned safely to her homeport of la Spezia.

The three teams took advantage of a temporary opening of the outer defenses and got inside, then scattered to their targets. The tanker SAGONA was selected because the aircraft carrier HMS EAGLE was not in harbor as the Italians had expected.

de la Penne and Bianchi were captured and locked in the powder magazine aboard HMS VALIANT in an effort to make them tell where they had placed their charges, but they would not talk.

EDITOR NOTE - This story was covered in detail some years ago in our KTB.

A few minutes before the explosive was to detonate, Lt. de la Penne asked the commander of HMS VALIANT to get his men off and quickly, to save the crew. The ship was abandoned and de la Penne escaped for a short time, but was quickly recaptured.

At 0600 the first charge detonated beneath SAGONA, badly damaging both the tanker and the destroyer HMS JERVIS which was alongside, taking on fuel. Twenty minutes later, the charge under HMS VALIANT detonated followed in four minutes by the one beneath HMS QUEEN ELIZABETH. These charges contained 300 kilograms (about 660 pounds) of high explosive.

All of the teams were captured and taken prisoner, even though some managed to evade for a few days after the attack. They were all held in P.o.W. camps for the remainder of the war.

The charge that damaged HMS VALIANT was placed under the port bulge by “A” turret. The blast holed the hull and forced the lower bulge upwards over an area of about 30 by 60 feet. The internal damage extended from the midline to the lower bulge compartments and the inner bottom of the lower bulge, the “A” shell room and magazine, and the adjacent compartment up to the lower deck immediately flooded. The main and auxiliary machinery was undamaged, but the revolving trunk of “A” turret was distorted and some minor shock damage was done to electrical equipment. The ship had a trim down by the bow, but could have headed to sea in an emergency. Temporary repairs were made at Alexandria and eventually she sailed to Durban where permanent repairs were made.

EDITOR NOTE - our SHARKHUNTERS group was in this very repair drydock during our ‘Operation SUB-AFRIKA’, our tour to that beautiful country, 1990.

The charge beneath HMS QUEEN ELIZABETH went off below the “B” boiler room and blew in the double bottom structure in that area and, to a lesser degree, below “A” and “X” boilers rooms as well, and upwards into the ship. Damage to the ship’s bottom covered an area of one hundred and ninety feet by sixty feet, and included both the port and starboard bulges.

The battleship HMS QUEEN ELIZABETH

“A”, “B” and “X” boiler rooms and also the forward 4.5 inch magazines immediately flooded, and “Y” boiler room and several other compartments in the area slowly flooded, all the way up to the main decks. The boilers, auxiliary machinery together with its electrical equipment were severely damaged by the blast and subsequent flooding. The armament was undamaged but all hydraulic power was lost, and the guns of the main and secondary batteries could only be used with severely reduced efficiency.

The ship sank to the harbor bottom, but was raised and temporarily repaired in the floating docks at Alexandria. Soon she sailed for the USA where permanent repairs were made, beginning on 6 Sept. 1942. She was finally returned to the sea, fully repaired, on 1 June 1943 - fully seventeen months spent out of action.

Another excellent piece of reporting VINCENT. Many thanks. Other Members are asked to do this kind of research and writing for our KTB Magazine. Thanks in advance.