Life
- 1929: Teseo Tesei had the idea of the manned torpedo, from the Italian device used to sink the Austrian Battleship Viribus Unitis during World War I, and invented for the Italian Regia Marina what was later called the Maiale.
- 1931: He entered the Naval Academy of Livorno, where he showed his inventive capabilities. Together with Elios Toschi he designed a human torpedo called Siluro a lenta corsa (SLC), later nicknamed the Maiale (Italian for "pig", because it proved to be difficult to steer).
- 1936: He improved the attack performance of his creation, the "Maiale", using an enhanced system (that he invented) to breathe under water for two hours. The SLC was extensively used in World War II by the Italian Navy, and obtained even the sinking of two British battleships in Alexandria. The British developed another kind of manned torpedo, called "Chariot", from one of his "Maiali" captured.
- 1938: He was one of the officers with Prince Valerio Borghese who organized the Decima Flottiglia MAS.
- 21 August 1940: Tesei was the only survivor when the Italian submarine Iride was sunk (see Decima Flottiglia MAS#1940).
- 26 July 1941: Tesei died riding a manned torpedo attacking Malta (see Decima Flottiglia MAS#1941). Teseo Tesei was posthumously awarded the Italian Gold Medal for Military Honor for this military action.
The modern Italian commando frogmen group COMSUBIN (Comando Raggruppamento Subacquei ed Incursori Teseo Tesei) is named after him.
Read more about this topic: Teseo Tesei
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“However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not so bad as you are. It looks poorest when you are richest.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“He is a man of one idea: that life has a symbolic significance. Which is to say that life and art are one.”
—Henry Miller (1891–1980)
“With liberty and pleasant weather, the simplest occupation, any unquestioned country mode of life which detains us in the open air, is alluring. The man who picks peas steadily for a living is more than respectable, he is even envied by his shop-worn neighbors. We are as happy as the birds when our Good Genius permits us to pursue any outdoor work, without a sense of dissipation.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)