Luigi Durand de la Penne (11 February 1914 – 17 January 1992) was an Italian Navy admiral who served as naval diver in the Decima MAS during World War II. De la Penne was born in Genoa, where he also died. De la Penne graduated from the Italian Naval Academy in Livorno in 1934. He joined the Decima MAS in 1935. Iride submarine crew rescue action On 22 August 1940, in the Gulf of Bomba, the Italian submarine Iride, being a human torpedo carrier, was sunk by a torpedo released by a British Fairey Swordfish bomber. The air attack happened during an exercise, in shallow water, when four human torpedo squads were around, including officers Teseo Tesei and Luigi Durand de la Penne. The divers were able to make an immediate rescue action. Of the 12 Iride crewmen who survived, two died during an unsuccessful attempt to surface, nine were retrieved alive (two of them died soon, due to wounds), and one was too shocked to leave the sunken submarine. De la Penne tried to persuade him to surface, and even gave him his own aqualung, but the seaman refused surfacing and died. Sinking of Valiant As part of a team of divers he took part in the human torpedo attacks on British vessels in the Mediterranean. In December 1941, he was one of a team of six (Emilio Bianchi, his second; Antonio Marceglia with Spartaco Schergat; Vincenzo Martellotta with Mario Marino) that attacked Alexandria harbour. They used an Italian human torpedo known as S.L.C. (Siluro Lenta Corsa, also known as "maiale"), actually a small underwater assault vehicle with a crew of two. As a result, four ships were disabled: the British battleships (by Marceglia and Schergat) and (by Martellotta and Marino), and the oil tanker Sagona and the destroyer . De la Penne personally placed the limpet mine under the hull of Valiant. Of the three teams of frogmen, only de la Penne and Bianchi were captured before the devices exploded. The other two teams were able to get the coast, but they were captured the day after in Alexandria. As de la Penne refused to inform the ship's captain (Charles Morgan) of the mines, he and his mate were confined in a cell under-deck, actually in a place just above where the mine had been placed. A few minutes before the detonation, De la Penne informed Captain Morgan