Decima Flottiglia MAS

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The Decima Flottiglia MAS ( German  Tenth MAS Flotilla ; initially officially 10ª Flottiglia MAS , later Xª Flottiglia MAS , short 10ª MAS or Xª MAS ) was a special unit of the Italian Navy in World War II .

The abbreviation MAS usually stood in the Navy for Motoscafo Armato Silurante , a type of motorboat equipped with torpedoes that was used in various MAS flotillas. However, 10ª Flottiglia MAS was an alias , as the unit was primarily equipped with explosives and manned torpedoes . In this case, MAS also stood for mezzi d'assalto or small weapons .

In the first months of the war the Decima MAS recorded losses in various unsuccessful missions in the Mediterranean . Later, by September 1943, she managed to put five warships and 20 other ships out of action. The attack on Alexandria in the night of December 18-1941, which among other things killed two British battleships, was particularly significant . A smaller special unit in the Black Sea that emerged from the Decima MAS achieved further success .

After the armistice of Cassibile and the subsequent occupation of Italy by German troops, a traumatic split in the flotilla occurred in September 1943. The box under German protection Italian Social Republic one as fought Xª Flottiglia MAS designated major unit under Junio Valerio Borghese end of the war on the side of the Wehrmacht on. Several soldiers of the original Decima MAS , prisoners of war, decided, however, on the part of the Allies on the Italian campaign participate. They formed a special unit with the short name Mari-assalto .

The successor to the Decima MAS , which was active until September 1943, are the special forces of the Marina Militare formed after the Second World War .

Origins

The Decima MAS consisted of a surface component equipped with light motor boats and an underwater component with manned torpedoes.

The origins of the motorboat component were in 1906, when the Navy first made plans for a 15-meter-long torpedo boat. These plans remained on paper until the Venetian company SVAN was contacted in 1914, which built the first two boats MAS 1 and MAS 2 by summer 1915. Other Italian companies also built other boats of this type on behalf of the Navy. Gabriele D'Annunzio invented the motto Memento Audere Semper (“remember to always dare)” from the abbreviation MAS , which later became the motto of the Decima MAS . During the First World War, MAS boats under the command of Luigi Rizzo sank the old liner SMS Wien and the battleship SMS Szent István , plus the merchant ships Lokrum, Sarajevo and Bregenz. In addition to the MAS, the first Italian explosive vessels were also built during the First World War . You could not achieve any success. After the end of the war, the Navy neglected the explosive and MAS boats, only the engines were slightly improved. Between 1936 and 1941 she commissioned somewhat larger MAS boats. The resumption of the explosive boat concept, especially the construction of the MTM boats , was particularly important for the Decima MAS .

The development of manned torpedoes began with the Mignatta , which the naval officers Raffaele Rossetti and Raffaele Paolucci introduced in 1918. During the first and last mission, they sank the battleship SMS Viribus Unitis and the passenger ship Vienna with their vehicle on the night of October 31st to November 1st, 1918 in Pola . After the war, this small weaponry was also neglected until the naval officers Teseo Tesei and Elios Toschi began developing the SLC torpedo on the basis of the Mignatta in 1935 . The introduction of compressed air diving apparatus (later rebreathers ) allowed in contrast to Mignatta that remained on the surface, longer underwater use of torpedo riders and also by frogmen .

Formation history until 1943

SLC in action

With the start of SLC production in San Bartolomeo near La Spezia , a training center for torpedo riders was set up. At the same time, in 1935, the 1st submarine group in La Spezia began to drop divers from submarines on an experimental basis . The divers were supposed to carry explosive charges into enemy bases and attach them to ships there. After less encouraging results, these attempts and the training of torpedo riders were discontinued.

In September 1938, the 1st MAS flotilla was formed in La Spezia under frigate captain (Capitano di Fregata) Paolo Aloisi by combining three smaller MAS units that already existed there. In addition, the flotilla received the order to train personnel for special operations and small weapons. A first special unit, around 30 men strong, was created. She received technical support from the SLC manufacturer and from the naval testing facility in neighboring San Bartolomeo.

In February 1940, frigate captain Mario Giorgini took over the 1st MAS flotilla. Giorgini was captured in September 1940 in a failed attempt to attack Alexandria. He was followed by frigate captain Vittorio Moccagatta, who fell off Malta in July 1941 . Under Moccagatta, the special unit of the 1st MAS Flotilla had developed into the Flottiglia Speciale , which was renamed the 10ª Flottiglia MAS at his suggestion in March 1941 because of the striking name . Allegedly, reference was made to the Legio X Gemina, which was particularly valued by Caesar .

In the spring of 1940, Moccagatta and his staff in the La Spezia naval arsenal were subordinate to a surface unit with explosive boats, which was stationed on the west bank of the Gulf of La Spezia in the Paolo Cottrau base, as well as an underwater unit with a diving school at the Accademia Navale and a torpedo escort school at the mouth of the Serchio river .

Frigate Captain Ernesto Forza commanded the flotilla from August 1941 to the beginning of May 1943, followed by Junio ​​Valerio Borghese. Under Forza, the underwater unit was expanded in the second half of 1941 to include a combat swimmer unit with the code name Gamma . The gamma combat swimmer unit under the command of Eugenio Wolk was also supported by CB micro-submarines from 1942 . The torpedo riders, however, used some larger submarines for the transport of their SLC, which were modified accordingly: Ametista, Iride, Gondar , Scirè and Ambra . The da Vinci boat was rebuilt for planned and never carried out attacks on Freetown and New York City . The work on the boats Murena, Sparide, Grongo and Aradam could not be completed in time in 1943.

At the beginning of September 1942, the staff of the flotilla and the command posts of the surface and underwater units as well as supporting services were housed on a former sea airfield near Muggiano on the east bank of the Gulf of La Spezia. Nearby were the San Bartolomeo naval test site and facilities for the Odero Terni Orlando armaments plant . The sea airfield with its hangars, quays, ramps and cranes became the main base of the flotilla. The diving school in Livorno and the torpedo riding school at the Serchio estuary remained. In addition, forward bases were set up as needed, including in Brindisi , Augusta , Leros , Foros , Amalfi and Carloforte .

Until February 6, 1942, the Decima MAS was under the direct command of the Admiral's staff, then, together with the San Marco Regiment, a new MAS Inspectorate General in Lerici near La Spezia.

This organization remained essentially unchanged until September 8, 1943.

Operation history until 1943

The list below is not entirely complete; a number of smaller, mostly unsuccessful missions have not been taken into account.

  • August 22, 1940: On the way to an attack (Operation GA1) on the British naval base Alexandria , the submarine Iride and the supply ship Monte Gargano were sunk by British torpedo bombers of the type Fairey Swordfish off Tobruk . On board the Iride there were four SLCs with ten torpedo riders (five two-man teams, one of them in reserve). There were survivors.
  • September 21, 1940: The submarine Gondar left La Spezia for a second attack on Alexandria (GA2). It had three SLCs with four teams on board, one of them in reserve as usual. Gondar reached Alexandria on September 30th, but was discovered by British and Australian destroyers, attacked and badly damaged, forced to surface. The crew sank the boat themselves so as not to let the special equipment fall into enemy hands. In addition to frigate captain Giorgini, Elios Toschi, one of the developers of the SLC, was taken prisoner of war.
  • September 24, 1940: The submarine Scirè ran under Borghese from La Spezia to attack the Gibraltar naval base (BG1). There were three SLCs with four teams on board. The operation was canceled because the British Naval Association had left Gibraltar.
  • October 21, 1940: Scirè ran out under Borghese with three SLC and four teams from La Spezia to attack Gibraltar again (BG2). On October 30th, three teams entered the port. Luigi Durand de la Penne and Emilio Bianchi were spotted and went underground, damaging their SLC and having to abandon it. The two torpedo riders managed to return to Italy via Spain. Teseo Tesei and Alcide Pedretti also canceled their use due to problems with the diving equipment and took the same route back. Gino Birindelli and Damos Paccagnini continued their mission despite similar problems and after overcoming torpedo nets they came within 70 meters of the battleship HMS Barham until their SLC also failed and Paccagnini had to show up due to oxygen problems. Birindelli tried to pull the explosive device all the way to Barham by himself, but had to give up exhausted. The explosion that followed did not cause any significant damage. Birindelli and Paccagnini were captured.
  • March 25, 1941: The two destroyers Crispi and Sella left Leros in the direction of Crete . About ten nautical miles from Suda Bay , a naval base, they each deployed three MT explosive devices with a 300-kilogram explosive device on the bow. The six boats, under the command of Luigi Faggioni , overcame the harbor barriers at night and attacked in the early hours of the morning, with the crews jumping off their boats just before the finish. The heavy cruiser HMS York and the Norwegian tanker Pericles went aground. The six Italian attackers were captured.
  • May 25, 1941: Scirè attempted another attack on Gibraltar (BG3) with three SLC. The targets, the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal , the battle cruiser HMS Renown and the cruiser HMS Sheffield , however, had left port to hunt the German battleship Bismarck in the Atlantic . An attack on a freighter failed again due to technical problems with the SLC. The torpedo riders returned via Spain.
  • June 26, 1941: A combined surface and underwater attack on Malta was postponed due to bad weather.
  • July 26, 1941: During the following operation against Malta ( Operazione Malta Due ) , the Italian attackers coming from Augusta (Sicily) had the Diana tender , two MAS boats, nine MT explosive devices, two SLC and two MTL and MTS support boats . According to the plan of attack, an SLC was supposed to blow up the harbor barrier in front of the Grand Harbor and thus allow the explosive vessels to enter the harbor. Since the Diana was spotted by British radar , the defenders were put on alert. In the further course a chain of various unfortunate circumstances led to a complete, lossy failure. Among the fallen were the commander of Decima MAS , Vittorio Moccagatta, his deputy, Giorgio Giobbe, the flotilla's medical officer, Bruno Falcomatà, and Teseo Tesei, one of the co-developers of the SLC.
  • September 10, 1941: Scirè left La Spezia with three SLC for Gibraltar. Spanish Cadiz torpedo riders were taken to the tanker on 20 September in Gibraltar Fiona Shell sunk and the tanker Denbydale and the freighter Durham damaged. The three teams returned to Italy via Spain.
  • December 3, 1941: Under the command of Borghese, Scirè left La Spezia for a successful attack on Alexandria (GA3). The torpedo riders led by Luigi Durand de la Penne were admitted to Leros. On the night of December 18-19, 1941, the attacks on the battleships HMS Valiant and HMS Queen Elizabeth , on the Norwegian tanker Sagona and on the destroyer HMS Jervis . All six torpedo riders were captured.
  • April 29, 1942: The submarine Ambra ran out of La Spezia with three SLC in the direction of Alexandria (GA4), the torpedo riders were picked up in Leros. The attack failed due to navigation errors and technical problems.
  • May 17, 1942: The irredentist Carmelo Borg Pisani, originally from Malta, was brought to Malta by Augusta in the MTSM 214 on the night of May 18 to prepare for the planned landing of the Axis powers ( Operation Hercules / Operazione C.3). The torpedo boat Abba , MAS 451 and 452 and MTSM 214 and 218 were involved in the mission . Borg Pisani, an Italian citizen since 1940, was discovered, sentenced to death and executed. He was posthumously awarded the highest Italian military medal. A total of four missions of this type were planned in Malta, two of which were attempted.
  • July 13, 1942: Twelve gamma combat swimmers swam from the Italian tanker Olterra , interned in Algeciras , Spain and serving as a secret base, to neighboring Gibraltar and sank the steamers Meta , Shuma and Baron Douglas (GG1) there with detention mines . The Empire Snipe was damaged.
  • August 10, 1942: The submarine Scirè was sunk in an attack on Haifa (SL1). No survivors among the crew and gamma combat swimmers.
  • August 29, 1942: In front of the Egyptian El Daba, an MTSM torpedoed the destroyer HMS Eridge , which could still be towed to Alexandria, was written off there as a total loss and then served as a residential ship and spare parts store.
  • September 15, 1942: Gamma combat swimmers of the Olterra sank the British steamer Raven's Point (GG2) in Gibraltar with detention mines .
  • December 4, 1942: The submarine Ambra left La Spezia for an attack on Algiers with two SLC, torpedo riders and combat swimmers . On December 12, the steamers Ocean Vanquisher , Berta and Harmattan were sunk with sticky mines , and the tanker Empire Centaur and the coastal transporter N.59 were damaged. Another attack on Bône failed.
  • December 17, 1942: Three SLC with six torpedo riders took off from the Olterra to attack the battleship HMS Nelson and the aircraft carriers HMS Formidable and HMS Furious . Off Gibraltar, an SLC team was killed by a British patrol boat with a depth charge and another was captured after being fired at. The third SLC returned to the Olterra with only one torpedo rider .
  • May 8, 1943: Three SLC teams left the Olterra for Gibraltar, where they damaged the freighters Pat Harrison and Mahsud and sank the freighter Camerata . The return was made without loss.
  • June 30, 1943: After posing as an Italian consular officer (and non-swimmer ) in Turkey , the gamma combat swimmer Luigi Ferraro sank the freighter Orion off İskenderun (Alexandretta) . Further actions concerned the steamers Kaituna (July 9) and Sicilian Pride (July 30) in Mersin and the freighter Fernplant (August 1) in İskenderun . The reason for the attacks in neutral waters was the chromite trade between Turkey and the Allies. After the actions, Ferraro was returned to Italy from his consulate for "health reasons".
  • August 3, 1943: Three SLC teams started an attack on Gibraltar from the Olterra and sank the tanker Thorshövdi there . The freighters Harrison Gray Otis and Stanridge were damaged . All but one of the torpedo riders returned to the Olterra .

For the operations between June 10, 1940 and September 8, 1943, the Xª Flottiglia MAS was awarded a gold medal of bravery , 31 soldiers of the flotilla also received it, in several cases posthumously.

At the German request, four MAS boats, six CB mini submarines , five explosive devices and five other boats were moved overland from La Spezia to Vienna and from there over the Danube into the Black Sea to Yalta and Feodosia . to support the attack on Sevastopol . The units formed there under Francesco Mimbelli the 101st Flotilla, which was regarded as a detached unit of the 10th Flotilla. The 101st Flotilla sank the freighter Abkhazia , the submarines SC208 (S32), SC214 (SHCH306), SC207 and the motor torpedo boat TKA-092 as well as some barges and transport boats. The submarine fighter SKA-021 was destroyed . The freighter Fabritius , the cruiser Molotov and the destroyer Kharkov were damaged .

On September 9, 1942, two MAS boats were sunk and three others were badly damaged in a heavy Soviet air raid on the port of Yalta. The crews of the MAS boats returned to Italy in May 1943, the remaining boats were handed over to the German Navy . One of the six CB miniature submarines was sunk in the port of Yalta, the remainder laid up in Constanta in September 1943 , where they first fell into Romanian and then Soviet hands.

1943 to 1945

Badge of the Xª MAS of the fascist social republic ,
1943–1945

After the armistice of Cassibile was announced on September 8, 1943, the staff of the Xª MAS remained in La Spezia with some subordinate agencies and units and waited in vain for orders from Rome. Borghese ordered the facilities of the flotilla to be defended by force of arms if necessary, while German troops disarmed most of the Italian armed forces ( Axis case ) or they were disbanded. On September 9th, Borghese informed his officers that he wanted to continue the war on the German side. On September 11th, he gave his soldiers the option of continuing to fight the Allies with the flotilla or of leaving the unit.

Borghese concluded an agreement with German authorities that granted the Xª MAS extensive autonomy under German command . In the course of the following months, the formerly small special unit developed into a large unit of around 18,000 men , which operated almost exclusively on land. It consisted of 14 infantry battalions , three artillery detachments , an engineer battalion and several smaller support units . Then there were the remaining special forces, whose surface and underwater units were stationed in La Spezia and Genoa . German combat swimmers were trained in Valdagno and on the island of San Giorgio in Alga near Venice .

The Xª MAS structured in this way was never used closed. Parts of the association fought at Anzio and in the Goths against the Allies and in Julisch Venetia against Tito's People 's Liberation Army . In northern Italy, units and soldiers of the flotilla, usually together with members of the Wehrmacht and the SS , terrorized civilians or entire villages suspected of supporting partisans. Because of its special status and its given apolitical and only nationalistic attitude, the Xª MAS quickly developed into a kind of state within a state in the fascist Italian Social Republic . Mussolini even had Borghese arrested on January 14, 1944 because he was politically too dangerous. Borghese was released under German pressure and because the flotilla threatened to intervene. As part of the Navy of the Italian Social Republic, the Xª MAS was officially disbanded by Borghese on April 26, 1945 with a troop roll call in Milan . Several units in the field capitulated in the following days.

In the Kingdom of Italy , which continued to exist under Allied protection in southern Italy, the Italian Navy formed a new special unit called Comando mezzi d'assalto , or Mariassalto for short, under the former commander of the Xª MAS , Ernesto Forza . In the spring of 1944, many prisoners of war from the former Xª MAS were released, provided they agreed to take part in the liberation of Italy on the Allied side. In addition to a series of smaller missions in support of partisans in northern Italy, two larger operations were carried out: On June 21, 1944, British and Italian torpedo riders ( chariot ) and combat swimmers attacked the cruisers Bolzano and Gorizia in the port of La Spezia , because it was suspected that they were the Germans wanted to sink in the port entrance as a barrier. The Bolzano was sunk in the attack that damaged Gorizia . The second operation concerned the almost completed Italian aircraft carrier Aquila in Genoa, which was set aground there.

literature

  • Jack Greene, Alessandro Massignani: The Black Prince and the Sea Devils. The Story of Valerio Borghese and the Elite Units of the Decima MAS. Da Capo Press, Cambridge MA 2004, ISBN 0-306-81311-4 .
  • Jack Greene, Alessandro Massignani: The Naval War in the Mediterranean, 1940-1943. Chatham et al., London et al. 1998, ISBN 1-86176-057-4 .
  • Jürgen Rohwer : Chronology of the War at Sea, 1939-1945. The Naval History of World War II. 3rd revised edition. Naval Institute Press, Annapolis MD 2005, ISBN 1-59114-119-2 .
  • James J. Sadkovich: The Italian Navy in World War II (= Contributions in Military Studies. 149). Greenwood Press, Westport CT et al. 1994, ISBN 0-313-28797-X .

Film adaptations

Web links

Commons : Decima Flottiglia MAS  - collection of images, videos and audio files

See also

Footnotes

  1. ↑ In Moccagatta's letter to Admiral De Courten of March 10, 1941, Arabic numerals were used. At this point in time, all MAS flotillas had Arabic numbers. The transition to Xª MAS was not made until later, especially in the RSI. Original document on anaim.it
  2. ↑ Mission list on anaim.it
  3. ^ Soldiers of the flotilla (until September 8, 1943) who were awarded the gold medal for bravery, marina.difesa.it
  4. ↑ The personnel sent directly by the 10th Flotilla were under Corvette Captain Salvatore Todaro .
  5. ↑ Details on regiamarina.net (English)