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The Italian submarine ''Scirè'' (also known as ''Sciré'' or ''Scire'' in English) was an Italian ''Adua''-class submarine, which served during World War II in the Regia Marina. It was named after the Ethiopian region of Shire, at the time part of Italian East Africa. At the beginning of the war, ''Scirè'' was commanded by Junio Valerio Borghese, and based in La Spezia. Early in the war, she was modified to carry three mini submarines (''maiali''). In 1940 ''Scire'' made it first foray into the Bay of Gibraltar intent on sabotage of the British ships in Gibraltar Harbour with three manned torpedoes. None of the three were successful with the most daring getting stuck 100 metres from HMS Barham. The crew were forced to withdraw and the explosion of the torpedo's only achievement was to tip off the defenders of Gibraltar Harbour. They organised for boats to drop small charges into the water each night that would have proved fatal to any diver in range of the shock wave. The ''Scirè'' entered the Bay of Gibraltar again in September 1941 with better results than the previous time. Three tankers were attacked and a 2000-ton ''Fiona Shell'' was sunk whilst another two ships were damaged. The Italians decided to create a permanent base in Spain eventually converting a ship called that was moored off Algeciras into a permanent base for naval sabotage.〔 The ''Scirè'' accomplished many missions inside enemy waters. Among these, the most important was carried out on 3 December 1941. ''Scirè'' left La Spezia carrying three manned torpedoes. At the island of Leros in the Aegean Sea, it secretly loaded six crew for them: Luigi Durand de la Penne and Emilio Bianchi (''maiale'' 221), Vincenzo Martellotta and Mario Marino (''maiale'' 222), Antonio Marceglia and Spartaco Schergat (''maiale'' 223). On 19 December, ''Scirè'' reached Alexandria in Egypt, and its manned torpedoes entered the harbour and sank in shallow waters the British battleships , ''Queen Elizabeth'' and damaged the tanker ''Sagona'' and the destroyer ''Jervis''. All six torpedo-riders were captured and the battleships returned to service after several months of repairs. During one of these missions, on 10 August 1942, ''Scirè'' sank, damaged by depth charges dropped by the British naval trawler in Haifa bay, about from the harbour. The ''Islay'' was captained by Lieutenant Commander John Ross of North Shields, Tyne and Wear who was later awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for his actions. The wreck of the ''Scirè'', lying at a depth of , became a popular diving site and Shayetet 13 training location. In 1984 a joint Italian-Israeli Navy ceremony was performed, in which the forward section was removed from the submarine and sent to Italy to become part of a memorial. A movie of that submarine taken by Ramy Sadnai can be seen (here ). == References == 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Italian submarine Scirè (1938)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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