In the pre-winter of 1969 I was a Lieutenant in the Royal Naval Reserve

american ww2 documentary In the pre-winter of 1969 I was a Lieutenant in the Royal Naval Reserve and the long-serving guide of the main, all-British atomic submarine, HMS Valiant (SSN 02) around then on a cordiality visit and berthed in the internal bowl of La Spezia Harbor on Italy's west drift. HMS Valiant was the second atomic vessel in the Royal Navy, the first being the submarine HMS Dreadnought (SSN01) which had an American S5N reactor. Because of some misconception with Vice-Admiral Herman Rickover, America denied further to supply submarine pressurized water reactors to Britain thus we needed to fabricate our own. HMS Valiant was in this way all British and was given an extremely progressed and quiet 80 megawatt reactor and turbine impetus unit, components of the plan of which were, incomprehensibly, later duplicated by the US Navy for their submarines.

Following three weeks of strenuous activities with NATO warships in the Mediterranean, all quick to increase profitable and uncommon involvement in following an atomic submarine, we docked in the internal bowl of the port of La Spezia. Similar to the custom amid affability visits, the nearby dignitaries and senior Italian maritime officers were welcome to an official wardroom party. That night I was doing 'meet and welcome' obligation on the packaging of the submarine for the gathering being held in the control room. A fairly grizzled Italian Vice Admiral came up the forehead, saluted the quarterdeck and drew nearer me as I remained in my best uniform (with sword) by the entrance down to the gathering.

"Great night sir," I welcomed him, saluting, "welcome to HMS Valiant."

"I sank the last HMS Valiant!" he snarled, giving back my salute.

"Well sir, make an effort not to sink this one please," was everything I could consider in answer; for it was Vice Admiral de la Penne. He quite delighted in the consequent party, took me out to a major lunch around the local area the following day and let me know, in his own particular words, how he sank the past HMS Valiant in 1941. This is his story.

On December nineteenth 1941 when he was a Lieutenant-Commander in the Italian Regia Marina, he drove three groups of two Italian frogmen into Alexandra Harbor riding on two-man chariots. On December third 1941 the Italian submarine Scire left La Spezia with three torpedo chariots secured to her upper packaging and in transit, set out Commander de la Penne with his five prepared frogmen from the Island of Leros in the Aegean Sea.

The Serce continued to a position a little more than a mile off the passage to Alexandra harbor, came up to periscope profundity and discharged the chariots. The three chariots continued into the harbor when the blast securing the passage was opened to give three British destroyers a chance to out. The vast majority of the British Mediterranean armada was at grapple inside including the WW1 ships HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Valiant. De la Penne's sidekick, Lieutenant Emilio Bianchi lost his Oxygen supply and needed to surface for a couple of minutes. De la Penne continued towards HMS Valiant alone. When he was a couple of yards short, the chariot's engine stopped to capacity and he needed to push it under the ship which had around four feet freedom from the level, sandy base of the harbor.

In the wake of putting their charge both de la Penne and Bianchi needed to surface close to the stern of HMS Valiant and were caught. Bianchi had broken his arm and was taken to the debilitated narrows, treated, and after that, in the wake of addressing which inspired close to name, rank and serial number from each of them, they were secured a lower deck compartment, unintentionally just barely over the charge that they had put under the ship. With fifteen minutes to the planned time of the blast, de la Penne cautioned HMS Valiant's skipper Charles Morgan in time for all the ship's work force to be cleared from the lower decks. Both de la Penne and Bianchi were somewhat harmed when their charge went off however were cleared to the upper deck so as to witness the charges set by the other two maiales going off under HMS Queen Elizabeth, the British Destroyer HMS Jervis and the Norwegian tanker Sagona. After every one of the charges exploded, both war vessels sank onto the sand and stayed stable for a few months until brief repairs could be finished and the boats refloated. Full stylized hues, nightfall with trumpet calls, parades on the upper decks and weapon drills were done in the meantime while the war vessels were laying on the base of the harbor, so it showed up from the shore that they were still above water and completely operational, if to some degree intensely loaded.