Qualla: Italian submarine Jantina (1932)

Italian submarine Jantina (1932): Introduction

Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Two submarines almost never see each other. They hunt blind, listening through steel, and they spend their war stalking ships on the surface, not each other beneath it. On the morning of 5 July 1941, that rule broke in the waters off Mykonos. The Italian submarine Jantina was running on the surface when a British boat spotted her hull against the dawn light and turned to attack. What followed was one of the rarest engagements of the entire war, and for forty-eight men aboard the Jantina, it became the last thing that happened.

Italian submarine Jantina (1932): A Boat of the Thirties

Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Jantina was launched in 1932, one of seven Argonauta-class submarines built for the Regia Marina, Italy's royal navy, in the lean years between the wars. She was a modest vessel by the standards of the conflict to come: two diesel engines pushed her to 14 knots on the surface...

Italian submarine Jantina (1932): The Duel Beneath the Light

Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

By July 1941 the Aegean had become a hunting ground. The Jantina had sailed from the Italian-held island of Leros with forty-eight men aboard. Patrolling nearby was the British submarine HMS Torbay, whose captain caught sight of the enemy boat some four nautical miles ahead and m...

Italian submarine Jantina (1932): Six Who Reached the Shore

Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Of the forty-eight men aboard, only six lived. Two officers and four petty officers survived the sinking and the long hours that followed, swimming through the open Aegean toward land. They came ashore on Delos, the sacred islet of antiquity, after more than six hours in the wate...

Italian submarine Jantina (1932): Found Again

Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

For eighty years the Jantina lay where she fell, in 103 meters of water near Mykonos, her location unknown. In November 2021, Greek divers found her wreck on the seabed, and the discovery made news in both Greece and Italy. Later survey work identified her bow, blown apart from t...