The Black Prince and the Sea Devils: The Story of Valerio Borghese and the Elite Units of the Decima MAS

by Jack Greene, Alessandro Massignani

At the beginning of World War II, Prince Junio Valerio Borghese, dashing Italian nobleman, assembled the famous Decima MAS naval unit-the first modern naval commando squad. Borghese's "frogmen" were trained to fight undercover and underwater with small submarines and assault boats armed with a variety of destructive torpedoes. The covert tactics he and the Decima MAS developed, including the use of midget submarines, secret nighttime operations, and small teams armed with explosives, have become a standard for special forces around the world to this very day.After the Italian capitulation in 1943, Borghese determinedly fought on as a Fascist commando leader. After the war, he became a man of mystery, variously said to be involved with several right-wing conspiracies, abortive coups, and clandestine activity. The Prince's death in 1974 was every bit as mysterious as his life.Greene and Massignani have drawn upon official archives as well as information from Allied and Axis veterans in an unprecedented attempt to separate fact from fantasy in this detailed examination of Borghese, the Decima MAS, and the Italian naval special forces.

Genres: World War II, Biography

284 pages, Hardcover

First published March 16, 2004

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
(1)naval warfare
born -- 1949

from Library of Congress: Greene, Jack, 1949-

Jack Greene is the author of four previous books and has contributed articles on a wide range of naval and military subjects. He lives in Los Osos, California.

Reviews

[JD · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting book that sheds light on the life of Valerio Borghese and the Decima Mas that he served in in the Italian navy during World War 2. The Decima Mas was one of the few Italian units during the war that had a good combat record and carried out some of the most daring and audacious raids by any side during the war. It also follows Borghese's and the unit after the armistice of 1943 when they chose to fight on along with the Germans and mostly in anti-partisan operations in northern Italy on land and then the Counts later life as a politician on the far right in Italy. Interesting read, but gets a little technical at stages and a few pictures would have added value to this book.

[Bouwulf · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wasn’t able to burn through this due to beginning my MA degree, and this led to quite a big time gap in the middle of my progress. Overall, it’s insightful, and does what it says on the tin, providing a basic overview of the life of a fascinating and shadowy figure, being, in the English language at least, unparalleled in this regard. It’s coverage of the Decima MAS, its personnel and its activities, is also substantial and interesting. However, quite a few things hold it back from being rated as higher:

- Very little insight whatsoever into Borghese’s personal life and feelings about day to day events, despite his writing an autobiography; I understand such a task must be difficulty when the figure is as shadowy as Borghese, but regardless, a bit more humanity to the man would have been appreciated.
- The first half is very technical & dry; I can’t necessarily fault the book on this totally, as my problem lies more in the fact it was not the reasoning behind my reading it. I was far more focused on Borghese’s latter years w/in 1960s-1970s Italy’s Byzantine politics, which the book thankfully covers in detail and well. If one is more interested in purely the technological developments of the X MAS and the naval warfare aspects, I am sure this book is for them, it is just that I am not. While I found the anecdotes of operations interesting and engaging, this first half of the book is very technical, with a lot of naval jargon and focus paid to the development of the ‘pig’ weapons, and can get too tiresome to read in one setting.
- Too many names, both personal surnames of officials, and technology abbreviations, w/out sufficient indexing; a glossary of abbreviations that actually includes all the technology and govt/military departments mentioned, as opposed to ones deemed most relevant, would be appreciated here. The same can be said for names, as this book gets like a list of Italian surnames at points, and I found myself wading through without the knowledge of who exactly half the characters were and what their role/position was in the story.

This story is complicated, lacking in English-language coverage, and especially as it goes on, very much in dispute. This book is a good first attempt at dealing with these issues, and I recommend it to anyone seeking a stepping stone into the study of fascist Italy, naval commando warfare, and Italy’s post-war naval fascist right

[Daniel Cicero · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've read several naval histories by Jack Greene and Alessandro Massignani and they're surprisingly consistent: good history, interesting topics and mediocre writing. I met Jack Greene many years ago. (He signed my copy of The Naval War in the Mediterranean 1940 - 1943.) His first language is English, but I sense Massignani's isn't and the rather clumsy sentence structure is what one might expect -- and forgive -- when the author is writing in a second language.

That said, I enjoyed the book and gained some insights from it. Valerio Borghese's wartime exploits are well known. The book adds some technical details about the two-man SLC's and the mothership the Italians created to hide them under the noses of the British and those parts of the book were particularly interesting. Borghese's post-war life was all new to me and the highlight of the book. Italy after 1943 was a chaotic place. Some Italians -- Borghese was one of them -- stuck with the Fascist cause. Others surrendered to the Allies. Some became -- Borghese did this too -- soldiers of fortune, fighting Communist partisans in the northeast. When the war finally came to an end, chaos continued with factions fighting amongst themselves, often resorting to violence or threats of violence. Reading it I thought of what life must have been like for the average Italian during this period. Chaos is the only word for it.

Overall, a good read marred to some extent by the writing style, but recommended.

[Raimondo Visintin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Molto ben narrata la parte legata alle vicende belliche che videro Borghese protagonista. Un po' fumosa la parte relativa al dopoguerra e ai legami veri o presunti del Principe con i satelliti del mondo di destra.
Un italiano atipico il Principe Borghese. Mentre quasi tutti aspettavano gli eventi per schierarsi dalla parte del vincitore i suoi uomini combattevano nelle gelide foreste sopra Gorizia così come sul fronte del Senio.

[Enrico De Benedetta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Una narrazione lineare ed intrigante che riesce ad intrecciare la storia di quest'unità speciale con la biografia di Borghese, senza annoiare. Un pregio è sicuramente l'obiettività dei due storici trattandosi di un tema molto delicato ed ideologizzato come questo.

[Makomai · Rating 1 out of 5]

Si perde un po' troppo nei particolari, mancando il quadro di insieme e accennando appena le motivazioni di Borghese l'otto settembre ed oltre. Ho letto di meglio sull'argomento.