 Traveling down the rows of Austrian battleships , the two men encountered Viribus Unitis at around 4 : 40 am . Rossetti placed one canister of TNT on the hull of the battleship , timed to explode at 6 : 30 am . He then flooded the second canister , sinking it on the harbor floor close to the ship . This second canister exploded close to the Austrian freighter Wien , resulting in her sinking . The men had no breathing sets , and therefore had to keep their heads above water . They were discovered and taken prisoner just after placing the explosives under the battleship 's hull . The Italians did not know that the Austrian government had handed over Viribus Unitis , along with most of the Austro @-@ Hungarian fleet , to the newly created State of Slovenes , Croats and Serbs . The two @-@ man team were captured and taken aboard Viribus Unitis , where they informed the new captain of the battleship what they had done but did not reveal the exact position of the explosives . Vuković then arranged for the two prisoners to be taken safely to the sister ship Tegetthoff , and ordered the evacuation of the ship . The explosion did not happen at 6 : 30 as predicted and Vuković returned to the ship with many sailors ( believing mistakenly that the Italians had lied ) . He therefore remained on his ship and went down with her and 300 – 400 of her crew when the mines exploded shortly afterwards at 6 : 44 . Following the explosion , the battleship sank in 15 minutes . The two Italian crew were interned for a few days until the end of the war and were honored by the Kingdom of Italy with the Gold Medal of Military Valor . 
