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The Black Prince And The Sea Devils: The Story Of Valerio Borghese And The Elite Units Of The Decima Mas Hardcover – March 17, 2004

by Jack Greene (Author), Alessandro Massignani (Author)
4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars 31 ratings
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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.
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  1. Print length
    284 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Da Capo Press
  4. Publication date
    March 17, 2004
  5. Dimensions
    6.36 x 1.05 x 9.26 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0306813114
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0306813115
  8. See all details
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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.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Da Capo Press; First Edition (March 17, 2004)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 284 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0306813114
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0306813115
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.27 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.36 x 1.05 x 9.26 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars 31 ratings

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Customer reviews

4.2 out of 5 stars
4.2 out of 5
31 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Lombardo
5.0 out of 5 stars history Buff
Reviewed in the United States on October 2, 2012
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I had heard of Valerio Borghese and I am very familiar wtih his family , I have visited Villa Borghese many times .
My father was from Rome and a an officer during WWII , I have written a book which I hope to publish Four Continents one Life , mine I was born in Tripoli Libia lived in Italy during WWII Souith America and now in the States ,
Many episodes and words lique the infamous Sepember the 8 1943 I heard the same from my father
3 people found this helpful
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars The firsts and only ones.
Reviewed in the United States on January 29, 2017
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S.B.S. , SEALS , NAVAL SPETSNAZ, an many others are a simple cheaper copies of this ITALIANS innovators in real Special Naval Forces on the history of naval warfare.
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Michael H. Brown
3.0 out of 5 stars Three Stars
Reviewed in the United States on October 13, 2015
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Book desperately needs photographs to illustrate the interesting history.
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GC
5.0 out of 5 stars a must read
Reviewed in the United States on February 13, 2011
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It is one of my favourite books. It is very well translated, and easy to read. Having read both the Italian and English version, I find that the English translation is as good if not better than the Italian original.
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States on September 28, 2016
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Great history of an Italian figure unknown outside of the country.
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Shopper
5.0 out of 5 stars IMO translations always vary in hindsight.
Reviewed in the United States on August 9, 2022
The 1st to 30th student in the class will have a vastly different interpretation of the SAME story in its relation to many of of the others particulars'. A assault like rifle will become a Multi-Alien ray guy killer in the first 10 peoples recollections @ times of different folks. JMO-
5 rifles is under armed, yet 5 becomes 50 and barely able participants in other circumstances.
-----I'm sure many here agree----
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Kindle Customer
2.0 out of 5 stars Not as good as could've been
Reviewed in the United States on January 3, 2022
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Book was rather disappointing. At the very beginning the authors state that their was a lot of limitations on information that was available and that shows. The book also jumped around so much that it was sometimes hard to follow.
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R. Forczyk
4.0 out of 5 stars Sheds Valuable Light on Italian Naval Special Forces in WW2
Reviewed in the United States on May 21, 2009
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.
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Top reviews from other countries

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PHyères
5.0 out of 5 stars L'histoire de la DECIMA MAS
Reviewed in France on August 22, 2010
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Pour les amateurs de plongée sous-marine qui s'intéressent à l'histoire, ce livre est indispensable. Il raconte l'histoire de la Decima Mas, unité d'élite de la marine italienne qui s'est illustrée pas ses actes de bravoure et le courage de ses hommes, capables d'exploits avec un matériel rudimentaire si on le compare à celui qu'utilise maintenat tout plongeur "loisir". Sans le Prince Noir, dont l'importance est précisée, cette aventure n'aurait pas vue le jour. Bien sûr, cette unité combattait pour l'Italie fasciste, alliée des nazis. On ne peut ignorer le contexte. Mais c'est l'aventure technique qui est passionnante. Ce livre complète le chapitre sur l'histoire des nageurs de combat italiens dont le savoir-faire sera récupéré par les anglais, qui ont souffert à Gibraltar des faits d'armes de cette unité.
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Martin Jacobsen
1.0 out of 5 stars Poorly translated!?
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 25, 2007
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I disagree that this book is well written. The sentence construction and words used indicate that the writer is either not a native english speaker or the manuscript was translated directly word for word from another language (italian?). In fact I found the writing style (or lack of same) so irritating, that I gave up half way through the book. Not worth the money, despite the interesting subject.
2 people found this helpful
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