page_title: Luigi Durand de la Penne
section_title: Sinking of Valiant
hierarchical_section_title: Luigi Durand de la Penne / Sinking of Valiant
caption_attribution_description: A Siluro a lenta corsa (Italian for Low speed torpedo), also known as maiale (“pig”), Italian manned torpedo. The pictured one is exposed at the was an Italian human torpedo — Museo Sacrario delle Bandiere delle Forze Armate, inside the monument to Vittorio Emanuele II, Rome, Italy.
context_page_description: Luigi Durand de la Penne was an Italian Navy naval diver in the Decima MAS during World War II. De la Penne was born in Genoa, where he also died.
  De la Penne graduated from the Italian Naval Academy in Livorno in 1934. He joined the Decima MAS in 1935.
context_section_description: As part of a team of divers he took part in the human torpedo attacks on British vessels in the Mediterranean. In December 1941, he was one of a team of six (Emilio Bianchi, his second; Antonio Marceglia with Spartaco Schergat; Vincenzo Martellotta with Mario Marino) that attacked Alexandria harbour. They used an Italian human torpedo known as S.L.C. (Siluro Lenta Corsa, also known as "maiale"), actually a small underwater assault vehicle with a crew of two. As a result, four ships were disabled: the British battleships HMS Queen Elizabeth (by Marceglia and Schergat) and HMS Valiant (by Martellotta and Marino), and the oil tanker Sagona and the destroyer HMS Jervis. De la Penne personally placed the limpet mine under the hull of Valiant.
  Of the three teams of frogmen, only de la Penne and Bianchi were captured before the devices exploded. The other two teams were able to get the coast, but they were captured the day after in Alexandria. As de la Penne refused to inform the ship's captain (Charles Morgan) of the mines, he and his mate were confined in a cell under-deck, actually in a place just above where the mine had been placed.
  A few minutes before the detonation, De la Penne informed Captain Morgan of the imminent explosion, in order to allow the British to evacuate the ship, but continued to refuse to disclose where the mine had been placed. The two frogmen were immediately sent back to their confinement place. Few minutes later, the mine exploded. Although hurt by the explosion, the frogmen reached the deck of Valiant just in time to see the other mines explode under Queen Elizabeth, Sagona and Jervis.
  Although both ships settled on the sea bed, their decks were still clear of the waterline. As all six frogmen were eventually captured and both vessels appeared to be operational, the success of the attack in neutralising the British ships became known by the Italian Navy only after some days.
  For this action, de la Penne was awarded the Gold Medal of Military Valour, the Italian highest military decoration awarded for valour "in the face of the enemy" (equivalent to the Victoria Cross). In May 1945, at the end of the war, the then Admiral Charles Morgan – who was Valiant's captain at the time of the attack in Alexandria – wanted to confer himself the medal to de la Penne in a ceremony in Taranto.
caption: A Human Torpedo SLC or "Maiale", exhibited in the Museo Sacrario delle Bandiere delle Forze Armate, in Rome, Italy.
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