Original subtitles

(gentle music)

(typewriter clacking)

(helicopter rumbling)

- [Narrator] This is the Italian Navy's

elite assault force COMSUBIN.

These men are the descendants of the world's first naval

special operation's unit, the Decima Flottiglia MAS,

a clandestine group that would achieve glory

in the Second World War with a secret invention

known as the human torpedo which would carry out

the most successful special operation of the war.

Incredibly the genesis of this project began

not in the Second, but in the dying days

of the First World War.

- The real strength of that weapon was secrecy.

(typewriter clacking)

- When one went off in their harbor with a big bang.

(typewriter clacking)

(dramatic music)

- It was an unfortunate year.

My father died (typewriter clacking)

and I was left to clear up the family home.

And when I was clearing up a lot of things there

in one of the cupboards I found this blue picnic basket

full of top secret naval documents.

When I opened them, it was a most peculiar pile of papers

because it referred to a thing called a human torpedo.

(dramatic music)

- [Narrator] 1866 and the ships of the world's navies

still have sails but a great change is in process.

In that year, a British engineer, Robert Whitehead

invents a device that will change naval warfare forever,

the torpedo.

This is Whitehead's first torpedo, a remarkable design

that has hardly changed in 150 years.

He designed a delivery system for releasing it underwater

and an internal mechanism which kept it

at the correct depth.

In this early photograph, British Naval officers

are learning the method of setting the depth,

the knowledge of which was officially top secret.

Whitehead's design for the torpedo was adopted

by the British Navy in 1870 and soon all navies

were to purchase the weapon.

First, for use in torpedo boats

and then, by 1900, in another new invention,

the submarine.

The 20th century's wars were to prove that the torpedo,

the devil's device as it was sometimes called,

was a devastating weapon.

(torpedoes exploding)

In 1915, an Italian officer, Lt. Commander Raffaele Rossetti

conceived a different use for the torpedo.

He imagined riding the torpedo into the enemy's harbor

to attack its ships.

(torpedoes exploding)

Rossetti worked on (typewriter clacking)

the prototype and manufacture on his own initiative

for three years

adapting the design of the standard Italian torpedo

with two detachable warheads and guided by two men

wearing diving suits.

World War I was creeping to a weary conclusion

but on the 31st of October, 1918,

11 days before the Armistice,

a motorboat slowly left the harbor of Venice.

On board was Raffaele Rossetti and a brand new weapon

which was soon to be launched against an unsuspecting enemy.

The target (typewriter clacking)

was the Austro-Hungarian Naval Base at Pola.

And the new weapon was his manned underwater torpedo.

This new device carried two men into the very heart

of the enemy harbor.

Rossetti at the front and Lt. Paolucci sitting behind him.

They successfully attached a magnetic explosive charge

to the hull of the Austrian battleship, the Viribus Unitis.

It exploded at dawn with devastating force

and 50 minutes later the ship sank,

taking its captain with it. (typewriter clacking)

Rossetti's remarkable achievement

remained an Italian secret.

70 years later the son of a British Naval officer,

Lt. Commander Hobson discovered

his father's top secret papers and saw a list

of Italian names which led him to contact

the Italian Naval Attache in London.

It was the first time he had heard of

the Decima Flottiglia MAS

and of one of their first recruits,

then a young lieutenant,

Gino Birindelli. (typewriter clacking)

- The Italian names I read out to him

were part of the Italian Navy, a very special group

who had done an incredible job

during the Second World War.

My story then began to take off

because I went to Italy and I met Gino Birindelli.

- I'm Admiral Birindelli.

I was born January, 1911.

Joined the Naval Academy Legor in 1925.

I was made a midshipman in 1930 and from then on

I was onboard various Italian ships.

- [Narrator] In 1935, Italy invaded Abyssinia,

the country now called Ethiopia.

The British opposed the invasion and for a time

there appeared to be a real danger of war

in the Mediterranean.

In that year Lt. Gino Birindelli

was based in the Port of La Spezia.

- In particular, in 1935

when Italy declared war

to Abyssinia I was on submarines.

And, we foresaw that sooner or later,

there would be a war

between Italy and England

because in order to have access to Europe

as freely as we wanted, we would have to eliminate

the English fleet from the Mediterranean.

To eliminate a British fleet from the Mediterranean

was a big, big job and we were not in the position

to doing it by

the building of more battleships

because to build a battleship takes a lot of money,

a lot of time.

(dramatic music)

- [Narrator] The British Navy was the largest

and most powerful in the world.

Birindelli was right.

Anyone wanting to control the Mediterranean

in time of war would have to defeat

the British Royal Navy.

The solution was to create a special weapon.

They referred to it (typewriter clacking)

as the maiale.

In Italian maiale is the word for pig

and maiale became the code word they used

for their secret weapon.

- Sure we thought that we had to find a way

of reducing the disadvantage that the Italian Navy

had with the British fleet by inventing,

by thinking about something which you could build

quickly and without too much money.

And, it was at that point that the maiale business,

let's call it, came into being.

For instance, at that time, on a summers in La Spezia

there was with me Tesei, Toschi,

Franzini, and others.

And, Tesei and Toschi come up with the idea

of building a replica of the weapon

used by other Italian Naval officers

in the First World War to attack the Austrian battleships.

- [Narrator] The submariners develop a new weapon

in secret and without seeking official approval,

exactly the same as Major Rossetti

and the original in 1918.

- Then Toschi, Tesei who were naval engineers

started building this small submarine.

It was easy because the idea of a submarine

they had it because we were onboard submarines.

The only point was to make a little one.

And, this was not conceived by engineers,

in a shipyard, or in Naval headquarters.

It was conceived by four young lieutenants

having dinner in a restaurant and talking about the future.

- [Narrator] One of the inventors,

Elios Toschi, described it.

"The new weapon was in size and shape very similar

"to a torpedo, but was in reality

"more like a miniature submarine.

"Its features were entirely novel, propulsion being

"wholly electrical and the steering wheel similar

"to that of an airplane.

"The crew remained outside the structure,

"the two men barely protected from the on-rushing water

"by a curved screen."

They would be able to operate in the interior

of a harbor till they found the keel of a large ship

and fastened the charge and thus ensure

that a large explosion would sink it.

At night and under cover of darkness

and steering by luminous instruments,

they would be able to aim at and attack their objective

while remaining quite invisible to the enemy.

(torpedo exploding)

But, to achieve this the engineers needed another

crucial piece of equipment, the underwater rebreather

which produces no air bubbles

and enables the human torpedo to remain invisible.

Remarkably, there had been several patents registered

for a rebreathing device in the 19th century.

But, it was only in 1878 that an Englishman,

Henry Fleuss (typewriter clacking)

manufactured his version which was used in rescuing

coal miners trapped by flooded chambers.

Then another engineer Sir Robert Davis

adapted the Fleuss system to create the Davis Submerged

Escape Apparatus to help sailors escape

from their submarine when trapped underwater.

- The rebreather really come out of very small one

used on British submarines for the escape

in case of

some mishap.

Commander Belloni (typewriter clacking)

was at that time looking after the escape possibilities

of Italian submarines.

And, he had in his hands the British

Davis Breathing Apparatus which was very little,

very small, and would be used only to get

out from the submarine going to the surface,

50, 60, and 100 meters.

Well, the rebreather was the key

to the construction,

to the conception and realization of a new weapon.

Without the rebreather, it would have been impossible

to do what we did.

- [Narrator] The development of the new weapon

was taking place in secret and it needed a secret name

to go with it.

The conspirators called it maiale

which means pig in Italian.

It has long been thought that it was because the machine

was difficult to control, but Admiral Birindelli

can reveal that the real reason for the name

was much simpler.

- Very often people ask, "Why did you call it maiale?"

There are for no reason at all except the secrecy.

Because the real potentiality (typewriter clacking)

of the weapon we had invented was that it was

not to be seen, not to be discovered.

It was a secret weapon and everything about it

must be secret.

So, because we had sometimes the need to speak about it

over the telephone and so on,

instead of having a code, we would say, the pig,

the pig, the pig.

(dramatic music)

- [Narrator] Working in secret,

Teseo Tesei, and Elios Toschi had managed to build

a prototype underwater human torpedo in 1935,

but it lay unused for the next four years

until war once again reared its ugly head.

(bombs exploding)

Tragically, only one of them would survive the conflict.

(dramatic music)

(sad string music)

- [Narrator] La Spezia. (typewriter clacking)

In 1940 it was the center of operations

for the Italian Navy.

For over three years the original human torpedo

built by two submariners had lain forgotten.

(cannon firing)

But, 20 years after the carnage of the First World War

from which the nations of Europe

had still not fully recovered,

a Second World War was about to begin.

- So, when in 1939,

when Germany declared war to Poland,

and Italy had made an alliance with Germany

and so we knew that we would get into war,

we heard that we had to get the old maiale

out of the place where it was put to rest

and to improve.

So, in June '40, Mussolini decide to enter the war.

Unprepared, the nation was unprepared

to fight that war.

We were not up to the standard of the Germans

or the British or the Americans or the French.

We felt like we would like to be like them.

We were not.

- [Narrator] The war started badly for Italy.

By the end of June, 20 days into the war,

the British Navy had sunk 10 Italian submarines.

(torpedoes exploding)

On the 9th of July, in an engagement with ships

of the British fleet, the Italian battleship,

Giulio Cesare was severely damaged.

The Italians badly needed to fight back

and the maiale was made ready for its first operation.

- We thought that we should attack the enemy

just at the beginning of the war

in order to have technical surprise.

We were not ready on the 10th of June

and that's why operation started in August.

- [Narrator] The Italian Army controlled Libya

and with the French surrender on the 22nd of June, 1940,

Italy effectively controlled the coast of North Africa

all the way to the Egyptian border

and the defensive lines of the British 8th Army.

(dramatic music)

The coast of Libya was to be a staging post

for the first human torpedo attack against the British fleet

anchored in Alexandria.

The method of transportation (typewriter clacking)

for the human torpedoes were purpose-built canisters

on the deck of a submarine.

On that first real operation with the inventors,

Tesei and Toschi with Gino Birindelli in charge.

- The operation organized in such a way that the submarine

which was supposed to carry us to Alexandria went to

Bomba Bay, (mumbles) alone.

We had practically finished putting

the maiale on board

the submarine and we started moving to go out

at sea to make this immersion.

While we were getting out of the Bomba Bay,

a group of three swordfish attacked us.

One of them dropped his torpedo.

Torpedo struck the submarine, the submarine sank.

Only the people who were on the bridge

of the submarine survived.

- [Narrator] Luckily Birindelli was one of those

on the bridge.

The Italian divers managed to recover the maiale

from the shallow waters of the bay,

but 50 men had died.

It was a bad start but worse was to follow

for the special forces of the Decima Flottiglia MAS.

One month later in September 1940 another attack

was planned on Alexandria.

The submarine Gondar with three human torpedoes

in its capsules reached Alexandria on the 29th.

But, it had been detected (depth charges exploding)

and for the next 12 hours came under relentless

depth charging from a destroyer until finally

at 8:30 in the morning and nearly out of air,

her ballast tanks were blown and she surfaced

one final time for the crew to abandon her

before she sank to the bottom.

Amongst those captured was Elios Toschi, the joint inventor

of Italy's top secret human torpedo.

In one month the maiale operations had lost

two submarines, 100 men killed or captured,

and eight trained maiale operators now prisoners of war.

Undeterred, the Italian special forces tried again

on the 21st of October, 1940.

The submarine Scire left the harbor at La Spezia en route

to a new target Gibraltar. (typewriter clacking)

The chief operators were Teso Tesei, Luigi de la Penne,

and once more Gino Birindelli.

Gibraltar was the most heavily defended harbor

in the Mediterranean.

In charge of the submarine was Prince Valerio Borghese

who could trace his ancestors back to 1513

and claim one pope (typewriter clacking)

and several cardinals amongst them.

- While we were moving toward the Bay of Gibraltar,

a British destroyer discovered us.

We went into immersion

very rapidly

and then started the long night of the chase

because destroyers had an apparatus ASDIC

to detect the submarine.

And, we spent all the night trying to escape

from the ASDIC of that destroyer.

That's why when sunrise was near,

Borghese made a last attempt

and with a very brilliant maneuver

he was able to drop the destroyer.

- [Narrator] It was two more full days of maneuvering

while constantly avoiding enemy vessels

before Borghese was able to finally slip

the submarine into the Bay of Gibraltar

on the 29th and release the three pigs

to attack the harbor.

- Gibraltar was visible.

The harbor and the naval shipyard was dark.

But, the town was lighted.

So, to go towards Gibraltar was very easy.

The maiale was driving like this.

So, my head was out of the water.

The second man was underwater.

We went through this long line of merchant ships.

Nobody saw us.

Nobody saw me.

So, I decided to go over the boats

and again there were the sentries.

50 meters to the right, 50 meters to the left.

I saw them, they didn't see me.

So, I said, well, I'll carry on, I'll carry on.

And, in the dark (typewriter clacking)

I saw the big shape of my target, the Barham.

- [Narrator] Birindelli's second man had been underwater

during the journey and ran out of oxygen.

So, he swam to the docks leaving Birindelli alone

on the maiale on the bottom of the harbor floor

and moving towards the battleship.

But, soon the maiale stopped moving altogether.

- I come to the surface and I saw the Barham

was 50 meters from me.

Would you stop doing something if you are 50 meters

from your target after you have come from La Spezia

and all the some.

Said, oh no, I'll get it.

- [Narrator] Birindelli pushed and pulled

as hard as he could but the rebreather could not cope

with the increased physical effort.

- At a certain moment I felt that I was fainting

and I say, well once I faint what's going to happen

to the maiale?

They will get it, the British.

So, I put on the timer for the explosion to happen.

- [Narrator] Birindelli was captured and although

his maiale exploded, it was still 50 meters

from the target and did no damage.

(torpedo exploding)

The other two human torpedoes malfunctioned

and did not get into the British base.

Tesei managed to coax his damaged machine

to the Spanish coast.

To safeguard the secret from prying eyes

he set it off out to the open sea,

but unfortunately it returned to beach itself

where the British

were able to photograph it (typewriter clacking)

giving them the first glimpse of this brand new weapon

before the Spanish removed it.

So, far the maiale operations had achieved very little.

And, the next operation would again prove

to be a disaster.

The Italians called it the Glorious Failure.

(dramatic music)

The target of the operation this time was Malta

which was proving to be a vital part

of the fight against the Italian Army in North Africa.

The small island of Malta is only 70 miles long,

but in 1941 it had three airfields, a submarine base,

and Grand Harbor, a refuge

for the British Mediterranean Fleet

and the ability to seriously interrupt supplies

to the Axis forces on the North African coast

despite 20 air raids a day against it

giving Malta the unwanted accolade

of being the most bombed country in the world.

The attack would involve two maiale transported

on motor torpedo boats to get them close to Malta

and backed up by another

Italian secret weapon (typewriter clacking)

used by the Decima Flottiglia MAS, the explosive boat.

- An explosive boats are boats about 15 feet long

and at the stern there was one pilot.

And, in the bows there was an explosive bomb

with about 300 kilograms of explosives.

- [Narrator] On the 25th of July, 1941,

nine of these boats with exploding charges

were launched close to the Maltese Harbor entrance.

They were accompanied by two human torpedoes.

One commanded by its inventor, Teseo Tesei,

the second by Lt. Francesco Costa.

The target was a recently arrived allied convoy.

- The scope of this attack was to place explosive boats

inside Valletta Harbor to attack shipping in the harbor.

The entrance of Valletta Harbor was blocked

by three sets of boats, but they tell us don't worry

about these because they wanted to enter harbor

in a different way because the breakwater did not reach

all the way to (mumbles).

It stopped about 50 meters short and over this gap

there was a bridge supported in the middle by a pillar.

And from this bridge there was a steel net

which hung down to the seabed.

Now the Italian plan was for a human torpedo

to place its warhead against this net

and explode it, so that the net was destroyed.

And, then the explosive boats would enter harbor

under the bridge through this hole and attack the shipping.

- [Narrator] But, the mission would prove

to be a catastrophe.

The plan would go disastrously wrong and this operation

would provide the British with an opportunity

to get their hands

on some of Italy's top secret weapons.

(dramatic music)

(boat engines humming)

July 1941, and the Italians have launched a night attack

against the island fortress of Malta.

A human torpedo piloted by Teseo Tesei is sent

to blow up one of the nets blocking the entrance

to allow explosive boats to enter the harbor.

- So, their plan was based on absolute surprise.

And, that is why the used a human torpedo

so that the defenders will know nothing that was happening

until there was this first explosion under the bridge.

Now the one that was going to blow up the net

under the bridge, Tesei, was supposed to explode the bomb

at half past four.

But, half past four came and there was no explosion.

So, Giobbe that was in charge (typewriter clacking)

of the attack allowed him another 10 minutes

in case he had been delayed.

10 minutes passed and still no explosion.

So, now the Italians went on what one might call plan B.

- [Narrator] The backup plan was to send explosive boats

to destroy the net.

These were not suicide missions.

The pilot leapt from the boat before it reached the target.

The first one to make the attempt failed to explode.

- So, the boat remained stuck to the net

with the propellers turning but the boat stopped there.

Meanwhile the other pilot, his name was Carabelli

he saw what happened, he decided to attack himself.

And, he was determined that would not fail.

So, he did not jump from the boat.

He remained on the boat and drove it straight

at the site of the pillar which supported the bridge.

The boat hit the pillar and exploded and Carabelli died.

For this act of extraordinary (typewriter clacking)

heroism, Aristide Carabelli was awarded

Italy's highest military honor, the Gold Medal for Valor.

Unfortunately, his sacrifice was in vain.

- So, the effect of two boats exploding under the bridge

on the surface of the water was that half the span

of the bridge was lifted from its foundation

and it fell in the water so that now the entrance

to Valletta Harbor was blocked even more

than it had been before.

(slow orchestral music)

- [Narrator] The harbor defenses alerted by the explosions

now began firing at the boats.

(guns firing)

- The battle lasted about one minute because after that

there were no more targets to fire at.

- [Narrator] Worse was to follow for the men

of the Decima Flottiglia MAS.

RAF aircraft attacked the remaining ships

and not one supporting vessel was left unharmed.

The few men that survived swam to the shore

and were captured. (typewriter clacking)

Teseo Tesei was not amongst them

and his body would never be recovered.

The Italians called it the Glorious Failure.

It was, however, followed by a glorious success.

(dramatic music)

As a submarine commander, Prince Valerio Borghese

seemed to have the uncanny ability to maneuver his vessel

close to heavily defended British harbors.

On the evening of the 19th of September, 1941,

the Scire, under Borghese's command once again

entered Gibraltar Bay.

It made its way slowly to the release point

of another three human torpedoes

for an attack on Gibraltar.

The defenses in Gibraltar Harbor

had been ungraded since the first assault

because Naval intelligence now

knew of the possibility (typewriter clacking)

of an underwater attack.

Lt. Lionel Crabb was put in charge of underwater defenses.

(depth charges exploding)

There was a constant patrol of boats in the bay

and small depth charges were dropped at frequent intervals

as a deterrent to underwater operations.

(bombs exploding)

- Dropping small explosive charges

was one rather nasty method.

Because the human frame is pretty soft-shelled.

And, if you drop a two-pound charge anywhere near

enough to you it most certainly incapacitate you,

if it didn't knock your head off.

- [Narrator] Despite these defenses,

all three human torpedoes successfully set their explosives.

The tankers, the Fiona Shell and the Denbydale were sunk

and the steamer, the 11,000 ton Durham

was damaged and beached.

All six of the maiale crews made it to the Spanish coast

opposite Gibraltar and escaped back to Italy.

It was a great success and an even greater one

was to follow almost immediately.

On the 3rd of December, 1941, Captain Borghese

in the Scire left La Spezia with another three

human torpedoes on board.

The target this time were two British battleships

in Alexandria Harbor.

And, on the night of the 18th of December,

the Scire released the pigs near the harbor entrance.

At 3:30am, Luigi De La Penne (typewriter clacking)

succeeded in navigating his pig under the Valiant.

Though in an act reminiscent of Birindelli in Gibraltar,

the last few meters had only been achieved

by pulling it along the bottom before he set the timer

on the charges.

But, on rising to the surface, he was seen,

picked up, and along with his second man,

taken aboard the ship, interrogated,

but refused to say anything.

(bomb exploding)

At 6:00am the charge exploded underneath them.

Some 50 minutes later, another explosion took place

under the battleship the Queen Elizabeth.

With the commander (typewriter clacking)

of the British Mediterranean Fleet,

Admiral Cunningham on board.

The third pig attached its charge to a large tanker,

the Sagona, which was moored alongside

the destroyer HMS Jervis.

They were both severely damaged.

(typewriter clacking)

It was a total victory for the Italians.

Admiral Cunningham wrote:

(typewriter clacking)

British Prime Minister Winston Churchill wrote:

(typewriter clacking)

The British were now beginning to understand

the huge potential of this weapon.

- Now the human torpedo of Costa which had been scuttled

near Pembroke it was salvaged by the British

the next day.

(typewriter clacking)

- [Narrator] For the first time, the British

now had their hands on three of Italy's secret weapons:

the human torpedo,

(dramatic music)

the explosive boat,

and the rebreather.

The British Navy were discovering just how ingenious

the Italian Special Forces had been.

- Divers recovered some of the weapons

that had been left by the Italians in earlier raids.

They brought the machines back here and we copied it.

And, so men were then asked to volunteer

for Special Services and it was at this time

that my father saw the notice.

He was on North Atlantic convoys at the time

and he thought, "This must be for me."

- I volunteered for Special Service in Gibraltar

in 1940 and it wasn't until April, May '42

when they grabbed me into the net as a volunteer

for Special Service.

- [Narrator] The British had copied the design

of the Italian human torpedo which they called

a chariot and with their version of the rebreather

they underwent intensive training in a Scottish Lake.

human torpedoes require a crew of two

and during the intensive training

Len Berey was partnered (typewriter clacking)

with Lt. Geoff Larkin.

Oh you became familiar with the machine moderately well.

And, I say, given the, given the time involved

I think we probably were as well-trained

as we could expect to be.

- As well as fighting because you're standing

in this tank and their rising water level

is coming up like this and comes over your mouth

and nose and one or two people stopped breathing,

because it's completely out of your element.

Then one day we were all assembled down on the jetty

and we were introduced to this human torpedo.

And, we were given a brief, brief lecture

as to what it was all about and well, "You can drop out

if you want if you don't want to carry on."

- [Narrator] Once the operators were trained

the first attacks began.

The British Navy also adopted

the same transportation method for their chariots

as the Italians had done, in tubes on submarines.

- The first one Geoff that I went on.

First off Operation Principle (typewriter clacking)

Geoff and I were engaged in going to Sicily.

Against Palermo we launched two pairs

from Thunderbolt which is the ex-Thetis.

- It was the first successful British mission.

They attacked Palermo Harbor.

Submarine, again, dropped them outside.

They went into Palermo Harbor and

Dick Greenland successfully (typewriter clacking)

put a charge under a cruiser.

- [Narrator] That cruiser, the Ulpio Traiano,

brand new out of the dockyard sank.

And, a troop carrier, the Viminale, was badly damaged.

(dark orchestral music)

The Italians hit back in an entirely novel way.

The Italian steamer the Olterra was laid up

in the neutral Spanish waters of Gibraltar Bay.

It was moored to a pier in the harbor

to be refitted but it was secretly taken over

by the Italian Navy and used as a base

for attacks on British ships just five kilometers away.

A hole was cut into the hull under the water

connecting to a flooded compartment.

Maiale were then assembled inside the ship.

On the 8th of December, 1942, the officer in charge

of the Olterra project (typewriter clacking)

Lt. Visintini led three maiale out of the underwater hatch

to attack a large naval force in Gibraltar Harbor

including two aircraft carriers,

Furious and Formidable, and the battleship Nelson.

Only Visintini's maiale was to get through

the reinforced defenses into the harbor,

but he and his second were spotted

before they could lay their explosives

and both were killed by depth charges.

As a sign of respect for their courage,

they were buried at sea by the British

some days later with full military honors.

Leading the memorial service (typewriter clacking)

was Lt. Lionel Buster Crabb,

the officer in charge of the underwater security

for Gibraltar whose defensive measures

had been directly responsible for causing their death.

The Decima Flottiglia MAS were not to be deterred however.

On the 8th of May, 1943, four merchant vessels

were attacked by maiale launched from the Olterra.

On the 4th of August two more.

All were badly damaged.

The British had no idea where the attacks originated,

although by now Buster Crabb was having grave doubts

about the Olterra.

But, before he could act on it,

on the 8th of September, 1943, the Italian government

announced an armistice and an end to the war

with Great Britain.

(guns firing)

Italy was split in two.

The Allied Armies were slowly fighting their way up

from the south of Italy, but the Germans

still controlled the north.

And in June 1944, one of the strangest

human torpedo operations was to take place.

(guns firing)

Former enemies, who weeks earlier were attempting

to kill each other, now found themselves on the same side.

(dark orchestral music)

After nearly two years in a British prisoner of war camp,

Luigi de la Penne, the successful leader

of the Italian maiale attack on the British battleship,

the Valiant, was freed and taken back to Italy

to help lead a raid by British human torpedoes

against his own ships in German-controlled Italy.

In one of the most extraordinary moments of the war,

the Decima Flottiglia MAS and the British Royal Navy

were to combine operations.

De la Penne had fought with the Germans,

now he was to fight with the British.

It was, for him, a very strange war indeed.

(dramatic music)

(guns firing)

In 1943, the British and Americans

were fighting their way up through Italy.

But, the Germans still controlled the north of Italy

including the part of the Italian Mediterranean Fleet

still in La Spezia.

- Well, the next British raid was rather strange

in that the Italians were used.

Now, you have to bear in mind

that the armistice came about in 1943.

And, it was in that time that my father

was sent out to Italy (typewriter clacking)

combining the Italian Naval group

with his own naval group.

The British Navy were rather concerned

that the Germans would be using the Italian ships

that were in La Spezia Harbor.

The Italians were used to put the mission

onto the target.

They knew La Spezia Harbor, they knew all about it

and De la Penne was used.

He took the destroyer and the men

outside La Spezia Harbor

and dropped off the torpedoes and the four men

and the attack started.

- And, that I was launched

from an Italian-made torpedo boat.

When I went into La Spezia in Italy I was overdressed

because you had the variation

between January and June.

And, working on the machine, I was perspiring

and I kept messing up.

Well you know what that's in a complete suit

and I was driving with open visor.

With luck that we had visors which opened at that time

and I was driving that way.

- [Narrator] Unfortunately, Len Berey's chariot broke down

at the last moment and he aborted his attack.

But, his colleague, Malcolm Causer managed to infiltrate

the German defenses and place his explosive charge

under the Italian cruiser, the Balzano.

The massive explosion (torpedo exploding)

under the ship caused it to sink the next morning.

This was the last human torpedo operation in Europe.

They had run out of targets.

The Decima Flottiglia MAS were the first

special naval forces in the world and their successors

are still based in La Spezia.

(dramatic music)

The Comando Raggruppamento Subacquei

Ed Incursori Teseo Tesei proudly carry his name.

Tesei's death has long been shrouded in mystery.

The Italians have always believed that he was killed

trying to blast his way into Malta's Grand Harbor.

Maltese Naval historian, Joseph Caruana,

who has extensively researched this attack,

believes he has the answer to the riddle

of what actually happened to him.

- The one piloted by Tesei who was supposed to

explode his boat against the net in the bridge,

this one effectively vanished.

But, the following morning, among the wreckage

outside Valletta Harbor, they found a breathing mask

which must have belonged to Tesei or his companion Pedretti.

That is because the crew of the other

human torpedo boat survived.

Now, looking at the records, it was found that shortly

at the beginning of the attack a gunner named Zombeach

on gun G when there was the explosion he went looking

out at sea and in the very, very little amount of light

provided by the dawn, the approaching dawn,

he saw some movement.

He was not sure what it was.

But, he ran up his gun and fired at it.

(artillery guns firing) And, he said,

"The target blew up."

Now this target could have been nothing else except Tesei

because there was nobody else in that area.

And, this was confirmed 25 years later in March 1966

because an Italian human torpedo was found in the seabed

near Dragut Point.

This could have belonged only to Tesei.

- [Narrator] The warhead on the maiale found in 1966

was still intact and was considered to be

in a dangerous, unstable condition.

The human torpedo was taken out to deep water

by the British Navy and blown up.

But, Tesei's legacy does not end there.

The divers of COMSUBIN still use a modern version

of the rebreather in their operations

to get close to objectives without being observed.

Their weapons too have improved.

They carry guns and explosives that will work

even after being submerged in water.

Tesei and Toschi's vision continues to this day.

The COMSUBIN have a modern version of the maiale

and it remains top secret.

This is the World War II Wall of Valor

at their headquarters.

And, underneath is Teseo Tesei's actual maiale

the very same one photographed by the British

when it was used in the first raid on Gibraltar in 1940.

A proud heritage.

(dramatic music)

And, what of Elios Toschi, the other inventor

of the maiale?

After being rescued from the submarine the Gondar,

he was taken to a prisoner of war camp in India.

He made eight unsuccessful attempts at escaping.

But, on the ninth attempt he managed to evade capture

dressed as Pathan tribesman, eventually reaching

neutral Portuguese territory.

Gino Birindelli stayed in the Navy after the war,

rising to the rank of admiral and eventually attaining

the distinguished rank of Commander of the NATO Naval Forces

in the Mediterranean.

All this despite developing tuberculosis

and only having one lung due to his exertions

with rebreathing experiments.

Luigi Durand de la Penne also remained in the navy.

In 1945, he was presented with his Gold Medal for Valor

for his successful attack on the Valiant.

In 1942, Prince Valerio Borghese left the submarine Scire

to take command of the Decima Flottiglia MAS.

In recognition of their gallantry

in extremely dangerous operations,

the entire crew were given the opportunity

to take up other, safer, naval posts but declined

and remained onboard.

The Scire was sunk by depth charges in August 1942.

There were no survivors.

Borghese was in the north of Italy

at the armistice in 1943 and continued fighting

with the Germans till the end of the war.

(cannons firing)

(airplane engines humming)

Upon his death in August 1974, he was buried

in Santa Maria Maggiore in the Vatican,

close to his ancestor Pope Paul V.

Lt. Commander Lionel Buster Crabb,

while working for the British Secret Service

disappeared on the night of the 19th of April, 1956

while diving on and investigating the hull

of a Soviet cruiser moored in Portsmouth Harbor.

Over a year later, a body was discovered

in a frogman's suit.

It had no head or hands but was assumed to be Buster Crabb.

Despite many theories, his death remains a mystery.

Ironically it was another death,

that of Robert Hobson's father that set him

on the voyage of discovery into the history

of the human torpedoes and he was determined

to honor their memory.

He organized the rebuilding (typewriter clacking)

from original plans of a brand new Mark I British chariot

and then something remarkable happened.

- It was about halfway through the building of the Mark I

that we happened to pop into a scrap dealer's

down in Portsmouth.

And we found a human torpedo, an original.

But, this, I'm pleased to say wasn't a Mark I,

it was the Mark II.

(dramatic music)

- [Narrator] The Mark II (typewriter clacking)

was an improved British chariot.

In this version, the men sat inside the machine,

making the chariot more maneuverable.

Its underwater speed was increased,

it had a range of 48 kilometers

and a much larger warhead.

(dramatic music)

The Mark II was used for the first and last time

in a mission on the other side of the world

against Japanese ships in Phuket Harbor.

- To gain a submarine drop the chariots

with the four operators outside the harbor

and they went in and blew up

a couple of small Japanese boats.

They were the first charioteers to actually

turn their torpedo round and come back out

and meet the submarine.

And, so that was perhaps the first successful raid

which had been completed in every way.

- [Narrator] 50 years after their outstanding operation

in Phuket Harbor,

Petty Officers Bill Smith (typewriter clacking)

and Sid Woollcott were once again reunited

with the machine that earned them both the

Distinguished Service Medal (typewriter clacking)

for their bravery.

In 1991, in La Spezia, a memorial was unveiled in memory

of the wartime heroes of the Decima Flottiglia MAS.

In 1993, Robert Hobson organized a similar memorial

at Loch Cairnborn to honor the bravery

of the British human torpedoes.

In 1941, Tesei and Toschi's invention, the human torpedo,

had sunk two British battleships, severely reducing

British superiority and almost turning

the Battle of the Mediterranean in favor

of the Italian Navy.

Their courage and imagination could have changed

the outcome of the Second World War.

(dramatic music)