Carmelo Borg Pisani attempted to enter Malta during the war (Operation Herkules), but was captured and executed as an alleged spy in November 1942. He received the Gold Medal of Military Valor, the highest Italian military award, by King Victor Emmanuel III a few days after his death. Requests have been made by his family and the Italian government to exhume his body and give it a burial outside prison grounds, which request has never been acceded to. Benito Mussolini called him a "Maltese Martyr" and created in his honor in Liguria the "Battaglione Borg Pisani" in November 1943, in which other Maltese irredentists fought.