Spartaco Schergat

Spartaco Schergat (1920 in Capodistria – 1996 in Trieste) was an Italian military frogman during World War II.

Schergat was born in Istria from an Italian irredentist and as a voluntary entered the Royal Italian Navy in 1940. He was a friend of Luigi Durand de la Penne, who enrolled him in the elite Decima MAS (XMAS).

He is famous for severely damaging the British battleship Queen Elizabeth, with a "maiale", in 1941 during the Raid on Alexandria. For this military action he received the Italian gold medal in the Second World War.

After 1943, he collaborated with the Allies until the end of the war, with the Royal Navy of Badoglio government in southern Italy.

He was elected in the 1950s as deputy of an Italian far right party (MSI). In 1996 Spartaco Schergat died, after a long struggle with cancer, in Trieste.

As part of a team of divers of the X MAS he took part in the human torpedo attacks on British vessels in the Mediterranean. In December 1941, Schergat was one of a team of six (Luigi Durand de la Penne with Emilio Bianchi; Antonio Marceglia with Spartaco Schergat; Vincenzo Martellotta with Mario Marino) which attacked Alexandria harbour. They used the new Italian secret torpedo S.L.C. ("Siluro Lenta Corsa", also known as "maiale"), a small underwater assault vehicle with a crew of two. As a result, four ships were damaged in Alexandria: the British battleships Queen Elizabeth (by Marceglia and Schergat) and Valiant (by Martellotta and Marino), and the tanker Sagona [1] with the destroyer Jervis.[2] Spartaco Schergat personally placed the limpet mine under the hull of the Queen Elizabeth.

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