Junio Valerio Borghese

Prince Junio Valerio Scipione Borghese (6 June 1906 - 26 August 1974) was an Italian naval commander and controversial political figure.

Junio Valerio Borghese was born in Rome into the wealthy Borghese noble family, and educated in London and from 1923 at the Royal Italian Navy Academy (Accademia Navale) in Livorno.

In 1929 his naval career began, and by 1933 he was a submarine commander. He took part in the Ethiopian War and during the Spanish Civil War was in command of the Iride.

At the start of the Second World War he took command of submarine Vittor Pisani, and in August 1940 was in command of submarine Sciré, which was modified to carry the new secret Italian weapon, the human torpedo. Known as SLC (siluri a lenta corsa - slow speed torpedoes), and nicknamed maiali (pigs), these were small underwater assault vehicles with a crew of two. In September 1941, Borghese managed to enter Gibraltar harbour to launch the human torpedoes on a raid which damaged three ships. On 18 December 1941, he reached Alexandria and launched three SLC that damaged the Royal Navy battleships HMS Valiant and HMS Queen Elizabeth, and the tanker Sagona.

In 1942 J. Valerio Borghese took command of the elite naval sabotage unit of the Italian Navy, which included surface assault craft, human torpedoes, midget submarines and SCUBA assault swimmers. This unit, known as the Decima Flottiglia MAS, or X-MAS, saw active service in the Mediterranean and pioneered new techniques of commando assault warfare, commanding the admiration of Italians and the respect of the Royal Navy.

Following the surrender of Italy on 8 September 1943, Decima Flottiglia was disbanded, and some of its sailors joined the Allied cause to fight against Germany. Borghese chose to ally himself with the fascist Italian Social Republic and continue fighting alongside the German armed forces, and on 12 September 1943 he signed a treaty of alliance with the German Navy. Many of his colleagues volunteered to serve with him, and the Decima Flottiglia was revived, headquartered in the Palazzo Fantoni in Salo. By the end of the war it had over 18,000 members, and although Borghese conceived it as a purely military unit, it gained a reputation as a savage pro-fascist, anti-communist, anti-resistance force in land campaigns alongside the German army, under the command of SS General Wolff.

At the end of the war Borghese was arrested by partisans, but rescued by OSS officer James Angleton, who dressed him up in an American uniform and drove him to Rome for interrogation by the Allies. Borghese was tried and convicted of war crimes, sentenced to 12 years imprisonment, but released from jail by the Italian Supreme Court in 1949.

With his record as a war hero and his support of fascism, he became a figurehead for pro-fascist, anti-communist groups in the immediate post-war period, acquiring the nickname Black Prince. He was associated with the Movimento Sociale Italiano (MSI), the neo-Fascist party formed in the post-World War II period by supporters of the executed dictator Benito Mussolini, and its successor the Fronte Nazionale.

Borghese's name is also linked with plots by the CIA to promote fascism in post-war Italy as a means of combating communism.

Latterly regarded as a political outcast, Junio Valerio Borghese died in Cadiz in 1974.

He wrote a popular memoir of his wartime exploits, published as "Sea Devils" in 1954.

Further reading

Jack Greene and Alessandro Massignani - The Black Prince and the Sea Devils: The Story of Prince Valerio Borghese and the Elite Units of the Decima Mas (2004) ISBN 0306813114