Raid on Alexandria (1941)

The Raid on Alexandria was carried out on 19 December 1941 by Italian Navy divers, members of the Decima Flottiglia MAS, who attacked and disabled two Royal Navy battleships in the harbour of Alexandria, Egypt, using manned torpedoes. {| class="toc" id="toc"

Contents
[hide] *1 Background
 * 2 Raid
 * 3 Aftermath
 * 4 In media
 * 5 See also
 * 6 Notes
 * 7 References
 * 8 External links
 * }

[edit] Background
Turret of Scirè, 1941On 3 December, the submarine  Scirè  of the Italian Royal Navy (Regia Marina) left the naval base of La Spezia carrying three manned torpedoes.[2] At the island of Leros in the Aegean Sea, the submarine secretly picked up six crewmen for them: Luigi Durand de la Penne and Emilio Bianchi ( maiale  nº 221), Vincenzo Martellotta and Mario Marino (maiale nº 222), and Antonio Marceglia and Spartaco Schergat (maiale nº 223).[3]

[edit] Raid
On 19 December, Scirè—at a depth of 15 m (49 ft)—released the manned torpedoes 1.3 mi (1.1 nmi; 2.1 km) from Alexandria commercial harbour,[4] and they entered the naval base when the British opened their defenses to let three of their destroyers pass. There were many difficulties for de la Penne and his crewmate Emilio Bianchi. First, the engine of the torpedo stopped and the two frogmen had to manually push it; then Bianchi had to surface due to problems with the oxygen provider, so that de la Penne had to push the Maiale alone to where HMS Valiant lay. There he successfully placed the limpet mine, just under the hull of the battleship. However, as they both had to surface, and as Bianchi was hurt, they were discovered and captured. HMS Queen Elizabeth in Alexandria harbour surrounded by anti-torpedo nets.Questioned, both of them kept silent, and they were confined in a compartment aboard Valiant, under the sea level, and coincidentally just over the place where the mine had been placed. Fifteen minutes before the explosion, de la Penne asked to meet with Valiant ' s captain Charles Morgan and then told him of the imminent explosion but refused to give further information, so that he was returned to the compartment. Fortunately for the Italians, when the mine exploded just before them, neither he nor Bianchi were severely injured by the blast, while de la Penne only received a minor injury to the head by a ship chain.[5]

Meanwhile, Marceglia and Schergat had attached their device five feet beneath the battleship HMS  Queen Elizabeth  's keel as scheduled. They successfully left the harbour area at 4:30 am, and slipped through Alexandria posing as French sailors. They were captured two days later at Rosetta by the Egyptian police while awaiting rescue by the Scirè and handed over to the British.[6] Martellota and Marino searched in vain for an aircraft carrier purportedly moored at Alexandria, but after sometime they decided to attack a large tanker, the 7554 gross register ton Norwegian Sagona. Marino fixed the mine under the tanker's stern at 2:55 am. Both divers managed to land unmolested, but were eventually arrested at an Egyptian checkpoint. [7]

In the end all the divers were made prisoners, but not before their mines exploded, severely damaging both HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Valiant, disabling them for nine months and six months respectively.[8] The Sagona lost her stern section and the destroyer HMS Jervis, one of four alongside her refuelling, was badly damaged. Although the two capital ships sank only in a few feet of water and were eventually raised, they were out of action for over one year.[9]

[edit] Aftermath
This represented a dramatic change of fortunes against the Allies from the strategic point of view during the next six months. The Italian fleet had temporarily wrested naval supremacy in the east-central Mediterranean from the Royal Navy.[10] [11] [12] [13]

Valiant was towed to Admiralty Floating Dock 5 on the 21st for temporary repairs and was under repair at Alexandria until April 1942 when she sailed to Durban. By August she was operating with Force B off Africa in exercises for the defence of East Africa and operations against Madagascar.[14] Queen Elizabeth was in drydock at Alexandria for temporary repairs until late June when she sailed for the United States for refit and repairs, which ended the following June. The refit was completed in the Britain.[15] Jervis was repaired and operational again by the end of January.[16]

[edit] In media
The attack is dramatised at the beginning of the film The Silent Enemy (1958). Another movie The Valiant (1962), is about the sinking of HMS Valiant in Alexandria harbour.[17] There is also a 1953 Italian movie (I sette dell'Orsa Maggiore) about the attack, including some real members of Decima Flottiglia MAS as support actors in the cast.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-17">[18]

[edit] See also

 * Junio Valerio Borghese
 * Luigi Durand de la Penne
 * Spartaco Schergat
 * Operation Source

[edit] Notes

 * 1) ^ Naval-History.net
 * 2) ^ Borghese, page 135
 * 3) ^ Borghese, pp. 134–136
 * 4) ^ Borghese, page 143
 * 5) ^ Borghese, pp. 148–151
 * 6) ^ Borghese, pp. 152-153
 * 7) ^ Borghese, pp. 155-156
 * 8) ^ Sadkovich, page 217
 * 9) ^ "...the battleships Queen Elizabeth and Valiant, so badly damaged that they were effectively out of service for the duration of the Italian war effort." Sadkovich, page 334
 * 10) ^ "Consequently, the Alexandria Fleet remained for many months without any battleships, and it was forced to abandon any further open activity. In fact, Admiral Cunningham wrote that his Fleet now ′should have to leave it to the Royal Air Force to try if they could dispute the control of the Central Mediterranean with the enemy's fleet.′(...) In fact, it opened a period of clear Italian naval supremacy in the east-central Mediterranean." Bragadin, page 152
 * 11) ^ "Overnight, the sea had became an axis lake. And the Italian Navy held dominating power." Schofield, Williams, and Carisella, P. J. (2004).Frogmen:First Battles. Branden Books, p. 134. ISBN 0-8283-2088-8
 * 12) ^ "The results of the attack would not be immediately known, but details would slip out in the coming weeks. The balance of power at sea had shifted." Greene, Jack & Massignani, Alessandro (1998). The Naval War in the Mediterranean, 1940–1943, Chatam Publishing, p. 204. ISBN 978-1-86176-057-9
 * 13) ^ Sadkovich, p. 219
 * 14) ^ HMS Valiant at naval-history.net
 * 15) ^ HMS Queen Elizabeth at naval-history.net
 * 16) ^ HMS Jervis at naval-history.net
 * 17) ^ The Silent Enemy at the Internet Movie Database
 * 18) ^ "Hell Raiders of the Deep"

[edit] References

 * "Frogmen First Battles" by retired U.S Captain William Schofield's book. ISBN 0-8283-2088-8
 * "The Black Prince and the Sea Devils: The Story of Valerio Borghese and the Elite Units of the Decima Mas", by Jack Greene and Alessandro Massignani, Cambridge, Mass.: Da Capo Press, 2004, 284 pages, hardcover. ISBN 0-306-81311-4
 * "Sea Devils" by J. Valerio Borghese, translated into English by James Cleugh, with introduction by the United States Naval Institute ISBN 1-55750-072-X
 * The Italian Navy in World War II by Marc'Antonio Bragadin, United States Naval Institute, Annapolis, 1957. ISBN 0-405-13031-7
 * The Italian Navy in World War II by Sadkovich, James, Greenwood Press, Westport, 1994. ISBN 0-313-28797-X
 * Mussolini's War: Fascist Italy's Military Struggles from Africa and Western Europe to the Mediterranean and Soviet Union 1935-45 by Joseph, Frank, Helion & Company, Solihull, West Midlands, 2010. ISBN 978-1-906033-56-9