Giorgini was born in
Massa from Vittorio Giorgini and Florence Rochat. He then entered the
Naval Academy of Livorno in 1914, graduating with the rank of
ensign in 1920. In March 1923 he married Fiorenza Corsi, from whom he had a son, Gian Giorgio (Dido). In 1934 he was promoted to
lieutenant commander, and later to
commander. On 24 February 1940, replacing his colleague
Paolo Aloisi, he was appointed commander of the 1st MAS Flotilla, later briefly called the Special MAS Flotilla, the special operations unit of the
Regia Marina, better known with its later name of
Decima Flottiglia MAS, adopted under Giorgini's successor,
Vittorio Moccagatta. While Aloisi was known for his technical expertise, Giorgini was valued for his organizational skills. It was him who chose submarines as the best means to deploy SLC
manned torpedoes near enemy bases, and in May 1940 he organized and directed the first trials for the transport and release of manned torpedoes from a submarine, using
Ametista as the SLC carrier and the old cruiser
Quarto, moored in
La Spezia, as the target.
Teseo Tesei,
Elios Toschi,
Junio Valerio Borghese and
Gino Birindelli participated in the exercise alongside Giorgini, onboard
Ametista; three SLCs were released from
Ametista, one of which was able to reach
Quarto undetected and place a dummy charge on its hull, proving the effectiveness of the SLC. After this,
Supermarina placed three submarines –
Iride,
Gondar and
Scirè – at the disposal of the 1st MAS Flotilla. In July 1940 Admiral
Raffaele de Courten, Giorgini's superior, ordered him to select his best four crews and launch an attack on the capital ships of the
Mediterranean Fleet moored in
Alexandria. After vainly protesting that his men were not yet ready for action, Giorgini set out to carry out the order; but the operation, codenamed G.A.1, ended in failure when the carrier submarine,
Iride, was sunk by British
torpedo bombers in the
Gulf of Bomba while readying to sail, on 22 August 1940. Giorgini, who was onboard
Iride, barely survived along with the SLC operators, while most of the submarine's crew perished; the SLC operators themselves (including Tesei, Toschi, de la Penne and Birindelli) managed to save several survivors trapped in the sunken wreck of the
Iride. A new attempt, G.A.2, was quickly organized, with some changes from the previous one: the carrier submarine,
Gondar, was equipped with special pressurized containers for the SLCs, which in the previous attempt had been simply lashed to
Iride's deck; and he submarine sailed from an Italian port,
Messina, rather than from a lightly defended Libyan anchorage as
Iride had done. Having left Messina on 24 September 1940,
Gondar arrived off Alexandria in the night between 28 and 29 September, but was then informed by Supermarina that the operation had been called off, as the Mediterranean Fleet had left Alexandria a few hours before to escort a convoy to
Malta. Having set course for
Tobruk, Gondar was then located and hunted by
HMAS Stuart and
HMS Diamond, badly damaged by
depth charges and forced to surface, where she was
scuttled by her crew. Along with the crew and the SLC operators, Giorgini was thus captured and sent to a
prisoner of war camp in
India, where he remained in captivity for nearly six years, only returning to Italy on 21 April 1946. The
Raid on Alexandria would be attempted again and successfully in December 1941, depriving the Mediterranean Fleet of its battleships for over a year. Upon returning from captivity, Giorgini was promoted to
captain, later commanding the
submarine depot ship Antonio Pacinotti and the light cruiser
Giuseppe Garibaldi. In 1950 he was promoted to
rear admiral. From 1956 to 1959 he held the position of Judge of the Military Supreme Court and later that of member of the commission for the granting and revocation of
military awards, being promoted to
fleet admiral in 1959. He died in
Florence in 1977. == References ==