of Gustavo Miniero. She carried out her first war mission in patrol off Cap de Creus June 17–19, 1940 without sighting any enemy ships. During her war career Turchese conducted many uneventful patrols in the Strait of Sicily and near the North African coast. On July 7, 1940 Turchese together with 5 other submarines, including and , was assigned to patrol and area south of Sardinia. On July 12, 1940, on her return journey to Cagliari, she sighted an enemy ship which appeared to be laying mines, and launched three torpedoes at the target. One torpedo missed, and the other two passed under the hull of the ship without exploding, while the ship moved away at full speed. On August 1, 1940 Turchese together with , , , Medusa (later replaced by ), and was sent to form a barrier north of Cape Bougaroun following departure from Gibraltar of the British Force H. There were ongoing British operations "Crush" and "Hurry" in progress at this time. Italian submarines stayed on patrol until August 9, however, Force H passed north of the area patrolled by Italian submarines, and they were not able to detect it. December 31, 1940 – January 12, 1941 Turchese was deployed on patrol in the Strait of Otranto along with and to protect traffic between Italy and Albania. In September 1941 during British operation "Halberd" she was deployed south-southwest of Ibiza along with and . On October 17, 1941, along with the , and she was deployed to patrol an area north of Cap de Fer. On November 10, 1941, she was sent to patrol the waters east of Gibraltar, along with , , , and . In the morning of October 28, 1942 Turchese was deployed along with , , , and south of the Balearic Islands with the task of intercepting part of Force H which left Gibraltar participating in British Operation "Baritone". Submarines did not, however, sight any British vessels that took a different path and then returned to the base. On November 8, 1942 Operation Torch was launched: more than 500 British and American vessels escorted by 350 warships began landing 107,000 troops on the coasts of Algeria and Morocco, thus opening the second front in North Africa. Together with many other Italian and German submarines Turchese was immediately dispatched to the southern Mediterranean. On September 7, 1943, under the provisions of Zeta