the second MS 51 to MS 56, 61–66, and 71–76. Some changes were made from series 1 to 2, most notably a raised bow, redesigned torpedo tubes closed by hatches, and the addition of a pair of MAS-type 450 mm torpedo launchers at the rear of the hull. In August 1942, during Operation Pedestal (referenced in Italian sources as Battaglia di Mezzo Agosto) two MS boats—MS 16 and MS 22—sank, in a night action, the British light cruiser HMS Manchester off Cap Bon. This 11,000-ton cruiser was the largest warship sunk by fast torpedo craft of any nation in the Second World War. The next month two MS boats were used to infiltrate a party of 14 Italian marines behind the Allied lines in Egypt on 3 September 1942. The marines blew up a railway and an aqueduct before being captured. During the Sicilian campaign there were a number of night actions involving Italian MS boats. An indecisive clash took place in the early hours of 13 July 1943 between the British destroyer HMS Tetcott escorting an LST in the process of landing Royal Marines on Agnone Bagni, north of Augusta, and MS 71 and MS 63, which were trying to insert Italian Army commandos behind enemy lines. The following night, MTB 655, MTB 656 and MTB 633 encountered and engaged MS 36 and MS 64 south of Messina. The Italian boats received no damage, while the British craft were slightly damaged by shore batteries. In what became one of the last surface engagements between Italian and Allied naval forces, the American destroyer USS Rhind, assisted by the USS Gherardi, sank MS 66 and disabled MS 63, in the course of a naval sweep west of Capo d'Orlando, Sicily on 3 August 1943. The damaged MS 63 managed to limp away after firing a torpedo at Gherardi. Post war Of the 36 boats built, 14 survived the conflict. Only nine of these entered service in the newly formed Marina Militare, as six were given up to Allied countries following the 1947 Paris peace treaty: four went to the Soviet Union and two to France. Furthermore, since the treaty conditions forbade Italian ownership of motor torpedo boats, the nine remaining boats lost their torpedoes, were reclassified motovedette (patrol boats) and given new hull numbers—from MV 611 to MV 619. Such prohibitions expired in 1952, after Italy's 1949 NATO accession; the boats