On November 1st 1918, two Italian officers, snuck into Pola naval base using a manned torpedo they had helped develop, and sank the battleship Viribus Unitis using limpet mines. Their names were Raffaele Rossetti and Raffaele Paolucci. As the war came to an end, the years passed and the country’s situation deteriorated, both men joined the ranks of the Fascist Party. Whilst Paolucci eventually ended up in the sinecure position of Vice President of the Chamber of Deputies, Rossetti proved to be a lot more ambitious, managing to win Mussolini’s favor and carving out for himself his own section of the Regia Marina, which came to be known as ‘Special Branch’. Whilst on paper subordinate to overall naval command, Special Branch was de facto independent of the other admiral’s control, and a popular carreer choice for ambitious young men. Whilst political leanings often proved to be an important criteria, the popularity of the service and Rossetti’s leadership ensured that professionalism and competency were highly valued. Intra-service rivalry ran high, with traditional officers aboard Italy’s battleships and cruisers viewing those joining Special Branch as upstarts, whilst the latter often referred to the former as dinosaurs.
By the time the Second World War was about to start, Special Branch had grown into an almost parallel service, being placed in command of land, sea and air forces. The San Marco infantry regiment, specially trained for naval landings, the Folgore paratrooper regiment (for control of whom Rossetti had had interminable fights with Italo Balbo, and whose development he championed), a large number of MAS speedboats, a force of over a forty modified SM.79 torpedo bombers, almost half of Italy’s submarine force all comprised Special Branch. It was however the frogmen and their supporting units, a service he held a deep personal connection to, that was Rossetti’s most prized formation.
Prior to the outbreak of war, Raffaele Rossetti had time and again impressed upon Il Duce the need to allow Special Branch the time necessary to prepare for surprise attacks against Anglo-French targets at the opening of hostilities, should the need come to that. In the end, his service was probably the only one that was prepared at the very beginning. Even before the French and British ambassadors were woken up in the dead of night to be handed Italy’s declaration of war, the forces of Special Branch were already on the move
Described in an anti-clockwise order, their attacks were as follows:
At Toulon in southern France, a force of three ‘MT’ explosive motorboats, having set sail from Italy proper, tried to attack the harbor, but failed to achieve any results due to coastal gunfire.
At Gibraltar, a team of frogmen was supposed to try and infiltrate the British base, but were detained by the Spanish, who feared the potential consequences of angering Britain.
At Mers-el-Kebir near Oran, another team of frogmen was deployed, this time from a lurking submarine. Due to poor reconnaissance, the men encountered previously unknown nets and were forced to swim back to their mothership.
At Bizerta in Tunisia, another group of four MT boats, deployed from a surface ship nearby, sped towards the harbor. Due to poor timing though, the only thing they managed to hit and sink was a barge exiting the harbor at the time. Due to swift French reaction, the pilots, who ahd ejected from their craft moments before, failed to link up with their allotted submarine and were captured. About 40 minutes later, just as dawn broke, a group of 3 SM. 79 bombers arrived above the naval base but failed to deal any kind of significant damage.
The same attack pattern as in Bizerta was carried out around the same time against Malta. Here too, the MT boats failed to connect with any target, although 4 British soldiers were killed by the explosion of one of the boats as it crashed into the harbor walls. The subsequent air raid, carried out by six aircraft, did minor damage to the dock installations, but also lost one machine, which was shot down by the Gloster Gladiator sent to intercept them.
The biggest attack though came against Alexandria. Here, as had happened many time before, an Italian merchant ship had docked in the inner harbor. Unbeknownst to the British, beneath an outer layer of commercial goods, the ship was packed with explosives. Whats more, the underbelly of the ship had been modified to contain a special hatch, from where a number of frogmen emerged. Swimming under the cover of darkness, the silent attackers attached limpet mines to four of the five Allied battleships in port - Malaya, Ramillies, Royal Sovereign, and Lorraine. Only HMS Warspite was not targeted, as the men became afraid of being spotted. Swimming back to their ship, the frogmen rejoined the rest of the crew, changed into regular clothes, and the ostensibly went along with their comrades on shore leave. This was no ordinary shore leave however, as all of the sailors met with their contacts from the large Italian expat community living in Alexandria, who proceeded to smuggle them into the interior parts of the city, disguised as locals. About one hour later, the British inspected the ship as planned (as tensions between Britain and Italy were already high), and found no one. The alarm was raised, but it was already too late, as only five minutes later the timed limet mines started going off. Moments later, the ship itself exploded, obliterating an entire section of the harbor, as well as setting off a huge fire that would consume parts of the city. The blast also tore apart the aircraft carrier HMS Eagle, which was docked nearby. Of the Allied capital ships in port prior to the attack, only the HMS Warspite, positioned at the other end of the harbor, escaped unscathed. As columns of smoke rose from Alexandria and dawn broke, the recently installed British radar stations picked up incoming aircraft – a total of 30 SM.79s, flying in from Rhodes. In the ensuing chaos, only a couple of fighters were able to be scrambled, and these did manage to shoot down three bomber. The bombers themselves did little damage, with most the hits landing on already crippled ships. It was however of little consolation to the British, as they had to deal with the Mediterranean Fleet being gutted.
In the aftermath of the June 10th attacks, Raffaele Rossetti was placed in charge of the entire Regia Marina by Mussolini almost immediately. The new admiral, expecting war to end any day now, ordered a hastily organized invasion of Malta, planning for which had indeed been carried out by Special Branch previously. Despite the element of surprise being lost, Italian paratroopers and naval infantry, supported by the big guns of the battleships, managed to establish a foothold in Saint Paul’s Bay in the north-western end of the island, although the enormous losses they suffered in the process effectively gutted the two formations. In response, and at British insistence, the French fleet under Admiral Darlan set sail from Oran, heading towards Malta. Once it reached the island though, the Italian ships retreated, leaving the French under constant attack by submarines and aircraft. Whilst only a cruiser was lost in the process, Darlan eventually chose to retire after trying to chase Italian ships eastward. He set sail for Alexandria with his four battleships, and en route heard of the armistice concluded by the new Petain government. After much negotiation with the British, the French Fleet agreed to fight on.
Raffaele Rossetti did not live to bask in his new-found glory too much, as his plane was shot down by friendly fire as it tried to land in Malta shortly after the island’s garrison was finally overcome. Officially, the cause was the ground crews believing his plane to be a British craft, although conspiracy theories had since run wild that Mussolini had secretly ordered his killing in order to dispose of a potential rival.
Three years later, with American and British armies poised to invade Italy proper, the Fascist Grand Council, with the support of the King, removed Mussolini from power. As he was being arrested, Il Duce was accosted by Rossetti's old wartime comrade, Raffaele Paolucci. At point blank range, Italy's Vice President of the Chamber of Deputies pulled out his revolver and fired three shots.