I’m sure you’ve all been waiting for part two of the story of the Maiali (Pigs) or SLC Human Torpedoes that were pioneered by Italy during La Seconda Guerra Mondiale (The Second World War).

In part one I explained that the Maiali were transported to the area of operation on board a specially adapted conventional submarine, this however presented various problems. Firstly it was risky and uneconomical, what’s more a potential target spotted by Italian observers based in Spain could easily have moved on by the time the sub arrived with its cargo of SLC’s. Then there was the problem of the operators getting ‘stale’ during the long voyage. This is where that special combination of Italian inventiveness and good fortune stepped in.

On the 10^th June 1940 the Italian nave cisterna (tanker) “Olterra” was in the Bay of Algeciras waiting to unload in the Port of Gibilterra (Gibraltar) when a coded message arrived to say that Italy had entered the war and that the captain should scuttle his ship.

The reluctant captain however decided to ground his ship in the shallows near the coast by blowing a hole in the hull, all documents were destroyed and a skeleton crew of five was left on board to protect the property.

The Olterra remained in this state for the best part of two years before a team of palombari (divers) arrived to repair the hull and refloat the vessel before towing it into port.

The Decima Flottiglia Mas (Mas being short for Mezzi d’Assalto or assault vehicles) planners had been searching for a fixed base for their operations near Gibraltar, and it was Tenente di Vascello Licio Visintini a young maiale operator who hit upon the idea of using the Olterra for this purpose.

In the autumn of 1942 Naval officers and engineers arrived secretly in Algeciras to begin work on converting the Olterra into a human torpedo base. Their cover story was that they were repairing the tanker to be ready for use at the end of the war.

Disguised as tanker engineers the Naval personal began to transform the internal structure of the Olterra. A compartment was created to house the torpedoes and other equipment, and a secret underwater tank was provided by flooding part of the prow. A hinged door was cut through the hull to allow the SLC’s to exit and enter the submerged compartment.

The torpedoes themselves, together with limpet mines etc. were smuggled past the unsuspecting customs officers disguised as spare parts such as piping and machinery for the ‘legitimate repair’ of the ship.

So it was that, right under the noses of the Allies based at Gibraltar, a secret Italian Naval base began to carry out operations against enemy ships, the Maiali leaving covertly from below the waterline of the innocent looking Olterra, and continued to do so undetected until the end of operations.

If you ever happen to be in the La Spezia area, perhaps during a stay in the nearby Cinque Terre, a trip to the Naval Museum is highly recommended. Here you can see one of the famous Maiali together with a section of the Olterra’s hull proudly bearing it’s name. Also on display are large parts of the wreckage of the Italian submarine Scirè which was used to transport the SLC’s into action and which was sunk with the loss of all it’s crew on August 10th 1942 just outside the port of Haifa in Palestine by a British torpedo-boat.