The Frogmen: The Story of the Wartime Underwater Operators

"Chapter 1: the beginning--Italian Operations in the Mediterranean. This is the story of the brave men who worked alone, under the water. Some wore fantastic-looking, rubber suits with great webbed feet, some walked, or crawled on the muddy bottoms of harbours in complete darkness, looking for mines, some bestrode torpedoes--the "Charioteers" they were called, some slipped through the black waters in midget submarines. They worked alone, in the dark, in enemy waters, in the dark, in enemy waters. When they started on a mission they knew that the chances were that they had taken a one-way ticket, that there might be no return. That grim knowledge went with deep down in hostile waters. Gut is was a forgotten knowledge, stored on one side, completely subjugated to thoughts of "attack," and their determination to cripple the enemy, no matter what the hazards or the cost."

"The first shot in this new method of warfare was no reverberating explosion, no column of water was hurled skywards. There was a gentle boom beneath the waters of Gibraltar harbour, a mere ripple on the surface one September morning; a British ship lurched, crippled and out of action, and an Italian frogman returned to report a successful operation against the Allies." The naval tanker "Denbydale", the 10,000 ton cargo vessel "Durham" and 2,444-ton tanker "Fiona Shell" were heavily damaged in Gibraltar harbour on the 19th of September, 1941. The new underwater war had started and the British admiralty started counter-measures that same day."