Lieutenant Commander Raul Galletti
Chief of the Secret Service Bureau of Brindisi

The submarine MAREA left port having previously taken aboard myself and six infiltrators divided into two cells.

On November 5th at 23:35 we moved toward the coast. At 23:45, since the sound of our engines was probably heard from shore, the lighthouse of Cortellazzo was turned on… We moved close to the coast up to the point where the boat stopped at a depth of 6 meters, resting on the bottom at about 1.5 miles from Cortellazzo…

“Due to the current, sea force 2, and a 4 knots wind from NE, we decided to look for deeper waters. … At 01:16 we invited the civilians to quickly disembark on the rubber dinghy previously prepared. The civilians declared their unwillingness to disembark due to the weather conditions, but mostly because they were not able to see the nearby but obscured coastline (due to the severely overcast conditions), thus assuming that they could not reach it… I proposed to repeat the attempt near Chioggia, but the infiltrators categorically refused to do so, thus the submarine reached the prearranged diving position in a 50 meter depth area.

“ November 6th, we surfaced at 18:30 and a small plane flew over the submarine at about 200-meter altitude. We dived again and at 20:30 we resurfaced.

“Even this time an airplane flew over the boat going north at an altitude of 150 meters.

“Visibility is relatively good, the moon is high and the sea almost calm.

“ To the almost certain sighting of the boat near Port Cortellazzo the night before, and to the probable alarm, we attributed the presence of the airplanes in a systematic search for submarines.

“ …We went to a new position for the landing established near Cattolica.

[Having disembarked the informers without problems, the submarine returned to base]

“I made present the spirit of sacrifice and sense of duty demonstrated by the crew, especially emphasizing the failures which have taken place (depth meter, planes had to be operated manually, and more serious, impossibility to replenish the air tanks due to the failure of both air compressors), which although making very feeble the possibility of completing the mission, did not minimally impact the morale of the crew, but instead stimulated their tenacity for the completion of the mission.”