Midnight Shadows: How Six ‘Human Torpedoes’ Crippled Britain’s Pride in Alexandria Harbor
The night of December 18, 1941, was a void of ink and ice. At 20:43, the Italian submarine Sciré slid silently beneath the surface of the Mediterranean, leaving the dim orange glow of La Spezia’s dockyards behind. Inside her cramped forward compartment, six men sat shoulder-to-shoulder, their backs pressed against the cold steel hull. They had trained for two years in secret pools and the black waters off Liguria. Now, for the first time, they were heading for a target that wasn’t a training hulk. They were heading for the heart of the British Mediterranean Fleet at Alexandria.
The men wore thick rubberized suits that trapped the scent of sweat and machine oil. Rebreathers were strapped tight across their chests. They were volunteers, chosen from dozens who had washed out. The Italian Command called them Uomini Gamma. The British called them “Human Torpedo Riders.” Their instructors had a grimmer name: “Dead Men in Waiting.”
The Stealth of the ‘Pigs’
Commander Valerio Borghese watched his plotting table in the control room with obsessive focus. His orders were absolute: deliver the riders to within four miles of Alexandria Harbor and avoid detection at all costs. British patrols were constant, and the Mediterranean was a British lake. If a destroyer caught the Sciré on the surface, the mission—and their lives—would end in a heartbeat.
At 23:51, the submarine rose to periscope depth. Cold air rushed in as the hatch opened. “All clear,” Borghese whispered. “Begin operations.”
The divers slid their monstrous “Maiale” (Pigs) onto rails toward the open hatch. These were 6-meter-long submersibles fitted with electric motors and detachable warheads containing 300kg of high explosives. At 01:00 on December 19, the three “Pigs” were eased into the sea. The six men lowered themselves into the freezing water.
The Breach of Alexandria
The riders moved in tight formation at a agonizing five knots. Above them, searchlights from British patrol vessels crossed the surface like sharks’ teeth. At 00:47, they reached the first barrier: a massive steel anti-submarine net anchored to the seabed. It was designed to stop anything larger than a fish.
But the Italians weren’t looking for a hole; they were looking for a key. The thrum of diesel engines echoed through the water. A British destroyer was returning from patrol. As the signal lamps flashed and the massive steel gate swung open, the three Italian torpedoes slipped through in the destroyer’s wake, submerged just inches above the seabed, before the mesh slammed shut again.
Inside Alexandria Harbor, the silence was terrifying. The silt-heavy water was crowded with the silhouettes of the world’s most powerful warships: the battleships HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Valiant.
Team One: The Agony of the Valiant
Luigi de la Penne and his partner Emilio Bianchi targeted the Valiant. As they circled beneath her massive keel, disaster struck. The “Pig’s” motor coughed and died. They were trapped beneath 40,000 tons of steel. Bianchi realized a valve had flooded; the motor was useless.
“We move it by hand,” de la Penne signaled.
For 30 grueling minutes, they hauled the 300kg warhead along the seabed by sheer muscle power. Their oxygen was failing. Every breath from the rebreather was a struggle against carbon dioxide poisoning. Finally, they positioned the charge directly beneath the battleship’s forward magazines. De la Penne turned the timer. They had three hours.
As they surfaced to escape, a searchlight caught the ripples of their wake. “Oi, who’s there?” a voice shouted. Boots thundered on the deck above. De la Penne and Bianchi were dragged from the water, hauled onto the deck of the very ship they had just mined.
Team Two and Three: The Tanker and the Queen
While de la Penne was being interrogated, Antonio Marceglia and Spartaco Schergat were maneuvering beneath the tanker Sagona. They worked with surgical speed, locking their charge into place at 03:29. They managed to swim to a nearby quay before being spotted and captured by British Marines.
The final pair, Vincenzo Martellotta and Mario Marino, approached the HMS Queen Elizabeth. The battleship loomed like a steel mountain. Despite the constant movement of sailors on the gangways above, they successfully attached their warhead beneath the boiler rooms at 04:11. They, too, were captured shortly after, caught in the harbor’s high-alert sweep.
The Interrogation and the Warning
By 05:00, all six divers were in custody, but the British only knew they had intruders—they didn’t know the ships were already sinking.
De la Penne was held in a steel compartment deep inside the Valiant. A British lieutenant slammed a fist on the table, demanding to know where the explosives were. De la Penne remained silent until the timer reached the final ten minutes.
He looked up. “I put something under this ship,” he said calmly. “You should move your men.”
The British officer realized he was telling the truth. The order was given to evacuate the lower decks. De la Penne was returned to his cell, literally sitting on top of the bomb he had planted.
The Eruption
At 05:35, the sea exploded.
A massive shockwave slammed through the Valiant. The ship lurched, and compartments deep within went dark as water poured through ruptured seams. Seconds later, the Sagona detonated like a fuel drum struck by lightning. The orange fire illuminated the entire harbor. The tanker’s explosion was so violent it crippled the destroyer Jervis moored alongside it.
Then, at 05:43, the final charge went off. The HMS Queen Elizabeth was lifted nearly a meter out of the water. Her boilers went offline instantly, and she settled slowly into the harbor mud, listing heavily to starboard.
Inside his cell, de la Penne felt the blast—a gut-level concussion that shook every bolt in the compartment. He had survived his own explosion.
The Aftermath
By 06:00, the damage was catastrophic. Two of Britain’s most powerful capital ships were out of action. The tanker Sagona was a wreck. Two destroyers were damaged. Six men on three “Pigs” had achieved in one hour what an entire air wing could not.
A British commander approached the six captives as they stood together near a warehouse. “You realize,” he said, his face stiff with disbelief, “that you’ve changed the balance of the entire Mediterranean.”
The strategic impact was massive. The British Mediterranean Fleet was effectively immobilized for months, allowing Axis convoys to reach North Africa virtually unopposed. Churchill later described the raid as an extraordinary example of “individual courage and ingenuity.”
A Strange Honor
Six months later, the Italians were released in a prisoner exchange. In a twist of fate, when Italy switched sides in 1943, the British Navy awarded Luigi de la Penne the Distinguished Service Medal—the same Navy he had crippled.
The British officer who had interrogated him on the Valiant was the one to present the medal. He extended a hand. “You warned me,” he said.
“I said enough,” de la Penne replied with a faint smile.
The raid on Alexandria remains the most daring act of underwater sabotage in naval history. It wasn’t won by superior technology, but by six men who mastered the art of the shadow, riders of the “Pigs” who proved that in the darkness beneath the hull, the smallest team can topple a giant.
