Flottilla X MAS - his story as you've never read it before

By Stefano Lazzaroni

The history of the 10th MAS Flotilla is one of contrasts. It is the tale of men who, in the midst of World War II, dared to challenge the sea and death with fragile means and extraordinary ingenuity. Slow-moving torpedoes, explosive boats, nighttime missions: tools that transformed naval warfare into a theater of audacity and innovation. In the nights of Suda, Alexandria, and Gibraltar, the flotilla wrote pages of legend, demonstrating that courage could bend even the most imposing ships.
But legend is never pure. After September 8, 1943, Italy fell apart, and with it the Xa MAS. One section remained loyal to the King and the Allies, the other followed Junio Valerio Borghese into the Italian Social Republic, transforming the unit into a land corps, employed in internal repression operations. Thus, the myth of the sea was contaminated by the violence of the land, and collective memory began to oscillate between celebration and condemnation.
These pages don't just recount military exploits: they tell the story of men. Luigi Durand de la Penne, Emilio Bianchi, Giovanni Magro, Franco, and so many others were not war machines, but men who wrote letters to their families, who shivered in the icy waters, who laughed to break the silence, who debated the meaning of their country. Their stories are made of courage and doubts, of sacrifice and contradictions.
The memory of the Xth MAS is a battlefield: for some a symbol of heroism, for others a mark of violence and betrayal. But beyond interpretations, the sea remains. The sea that united them, the sea that tested them, the sea that preserved their exploits and their failures.
This is the story of a legend that turned into a wound. It's the story of men who dared, and of a sea that hasn't forgotten.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0G83LF27W
• ISBN13: 9798261726586
• Release Date: December 2025
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 96 Pages
• Weight: 0.31 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.2" x 6.0" x 9.0"