The King’s Raiders

There is a “before” and an “after” in the history of the Xª MAS Flotilla of the Royal Italian Navy, and the dividing line is September 8, 1943, when Commander Junio Valerio Borghese gathered his raiders and announced his decision to side with the Italian Social Republic and the Nazis. Only a few followed him, yet that choice forever stained what had until then been a glorious military history—a story of loyalty and courage, patriotism, discipline, and heroism.

Before all that, astride the famous “pigs” (manned torpedoes), the men of the Xª MAS spent three years assaulting the two main enemy strongholds in the Mediterranean—Gibraltar and Alexandria—and gave their lives at Malta to make up for the Navy’s shortcomings.

The private stories of each of them reveal they would have gladly done without it all. Far from any ideology (fascists were a tiny minority), imbued with sincere Risorgimento-style patriotism, they fought a war they already knew was lost. Thirty-one gold medals tell their story better than any words. Paradoxically, it was the British who became the chroniclers of the Xª MAS’s feats.

Lionel Crabb, legendary MI6 agent and Britain’s top diver, head of the anti-raider team in Gibraltar, honored the fallen Italians by throwing wreaths into the sea, and after the September 8 armistice, he sought out his former enemies to recruit them in the fight against the Nazi-fascists. From de la Penne to Straulino, from Birindelli to Forza (the last commander of the Xª), many answered the call of the new Italy. This time, it was German ships that were blown up—in Genoa, La Spezia, Imperia. The best way to restore the honor of a unit sullied by Borghese and his marines.