The Black Prince And The Sea Devils: The Story Of Valerio Borghese And The Elite Units Of The Decima Mas [Hardcover]

Jack Greene (Author), Alessandro Massignani (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 16, 2004

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.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A one-man embodiment of the collusion between royalty and fascism during WWII, Italian prince Junio Valerio Borgese (1906–1974) founded the Decima MAS (or Motobarca Armata Svan), a then-innovative small unit that was a progenitor of today’s U.S. Special Forces. The X Mas, as it was also called, included everything from frogmen who walked underwater to their targets, to torpedoes "driven" by operators, to tiny submarines and small, fast, light surface craft. Greene (Ironclads at War) and Italian author Massignani (who co-wrote Rommel’s North Atlantic Campaign with Greene) claim to be bringing Borghese’s whole story "before the English-language audience for the first time in a full-length work," drawing on archival material (which provides fodder for an 8-page b&w photo insert), interviews and secondary sources. From outlining his origins within the gentry and young adulthood under Mussolini to discussing his wartime exploits, adventures with Italy’s anti-communist far right during the Cold War, and mysterious death, the authors try to stay within the realm of the known, keeping speculation—and sensationalism—to a minimum.
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About the Author

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. Alessandro Massignani is a specialist in Italian naval history and the author of numerous books in Italian.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Da Capo Press; First Edition edition (March 16, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0306813114
• ISBN-13: 978-0306813115
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #608,993 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Before There Were SEALS, SAS, or Special Forces., July 1, 2004

By 

John Matlock "Gunny" (Winnemucca, NV) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Black Prince And The Sea Devils: The Story Of Valerio Borghese And The Elite Units Of The Decima Mas (Hardcover)

Every major military in the world has it's special elite units. The British have their SAS. The Americans the SEALS, Rangers, and Special Forces. Strangely enough, this trend began with the Italian Navy. Their Decima MAS unit pioneered the concept of small, specially trained units that did damage to their enemies far beyond their size. Movie buffs will recognize their exploits as shown in the 1958 movie 'The Silent Enemy' where frogmen attack the HMS Valiant and the HMS Queen Elizabeth using specially modified torpedoes that they ride into the harbour.

It is nice to see that the Italian military is portrayed here as something other than the bumbling fools so often shown in American films and books. This book treats the unit as they would any other unit, telling how it got started, their training, their failures and their successes. This book is also the basis for a new movie called 'The Sea Devils' although I understand that the project is now on hold.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The story of Prince Valerio Borghese, September 8, 2004

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Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Black Prince And The Sea Devils: The Story Of Valerio Borghese And The Elite Units Of The Decima Mas (Hardcover)

Jack Greene and Alessandro Massignani's The Black Prince And The Sea Devils is the story of Prince Valerio Borghese and his infamous World War II Italian naval commando unit will intrigue any with a special interest in World War II history beyond the generalist topics and scope. Green has authored four previous military titles and Massignani brings with him a special focus on Italian naval history: the two draw upon official archival sources and veteran accounts on both sides to separate fact from fantasy.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Sheds Valuable Light on Italian Naval Special Forces in WW2, May 21, 2009

By 

R. A Forczyk (MD, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Black Prince And The Sea Devils: The Story Of Valerio Borghese And The Elite Units Of The Decima Mas (Hardcover)

Italy's contributions in the Second World War generally don't get much coverage in historiography and what little occurs is often negative. Indeed, the general impression - created largely by wartime British propaganda - was that Italian troops fought badly or not at all. Thus, it is great to finally see a book such as `The Black Prince and the Sea Devils' appear to correct some of these false impressions to show to an English-language audience that Fascist Italy did have some real warriors. In this case, the `Black Prince' was Prince Valerio Borghese, who led the elite `Decima MAS' (10th Light Flotilla), an special forces unit in the Italian Navy that specialized in underwater attacks. Borghese led the Decima MAS in 1941-43 and achieved some of Italy's greatest successes in the war, including the sinking of the British battleships Queen Elizabeth and Valiant. The great thing about this book is that there is a good deal of fresh material about a subject that has received little coverage before, but the bad thing about this book is that the author's tend to wander off in the morass of post-war Italian politics about two-thirds of the way through and will lose most of their readers in that swamp. Nevertheless, The Black Prince provides a great look not only at a special unit in Italy's armed forces, but the genesis of modern special warfare units such as the American SEALs.

The Black Prince consists of 238 pages of text divided into 17 chapters. Rather little is written about Prince Borghese's background or life before the war - just 23 pages. The authors spend 25 pages detailing the origin and capabilities of the Italian Navy's special underwater warfare units, including diagrams of the `human torpedoes' and MTM explosive boats. However, the heart of the book is the 8 chapters and 126 pages that cover the Decima MAS' special activities during the Second World War. Naval history enthusiasts will enjoy the attention to detail as the authors take the reader through each special mission step-by-step, including maps of the major attacks. These chapters not only describe the major success at Alexandria in 1941, but repeated efforts against Gibraltar. There is some great material here that I had not seen before, such as the Italian success in setting up a secret forward base right next to Gibraltar in the hulk of an abandoned and beached freighter.

The last quarter of the book is a disappointment, in that it actually says fairly little about Borghese and wanders off into a great deal of speculation, beginning with assertion that Decima MAS veterans sank the Soviet battleship Novorossiysk in Sevastopol harbor in 1955. Trying to paint Borghese as a `Cold War warrior,' the authors make a number of assertions that the American CIA needed him since `he knew how to fight Communists.' Since Borghese's anti-partisan experiences in the waning days of World War Two were hardly unique, the authors never make the case as to why he had any special, long-term knowledge that would justify a CIA connection. Later, when Borghese became involved in right-wing Italian politics and a fizzled coup effort, the authors start dragging Richard Nixon, more CIA and the Mafia into an un-substantiated bouillabaisse that becomes virtually unreadable. Indeed, the authors move from a lucid, fact-based account when describing Borghese's military activities to a lurid and speculation-driven account when recounting his post-war life. Throughout the book, even in its best chapters, the authors actually say fairly little about Borghese and he comes across as something of a reactionary cipher. While the authors claim that Borghese destroyed `his papers,' after the war, it is unclear why they were unable to paint a better picture from people who knew him or surviving relatives.

The book also has 8 maps, a glossary, an appendix on X MAS organization, 27 pages of footnotes and a 4-page bibliography. Overall, The Black Prince is noteworthy for shedding considerable light on a previously neglected facet of the war, but the book could have been better if it had provided more on the factual basis of Borghese's life and his relationship with Mussolini, rather than veering off to chase post-war conspiracy theories.