Red Sea
In 1940 Pelosi commanded the Italian submarine Evangelista Torricelli which was part of the Red Sea Flotilla based in Massawa, Eritrea. The Toricelli was on patrol in the Gulf of Aden on 23 June 1940 when she was intercepted by a Royal Navy battle group comprising the destroyers HMS Kandahar, HMS Khartoum, HMS Kingston and the sloop HMS Shoreham. The Torricelli was trapped on the surface and unable to dive due to technical problems but fought a gun and torpedo action damaging the British before scuttling herself. A shell from the Italian submarine hit HMS Khartoum which suffered a fire resulting in an ammunition explosion sinking the ship. Pelosi was awarded the Gold Medal of Military Valor for this action and spent the rest of the war as a POW.
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Famous quotes containing the words red and/or sea:
“What art can paint or gild any object in afterlife with the glow which Nature gives to the first baubles of childhood. St. Peter’s cannot have the magical power over us that the red and gold covers of our first picture-book possessed. How the imagination cleaves to the warm glories of that tinsel even now! What entertainments make every day bright and short for the fine freshman!”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters, these see the works of the Lord and his wonders in the deep.”
—Bible: Hebrew Psalms, 107:23-4.