Raid on Pula

The raid on Pula was an Italian Navy operation conducted during the night of 31 October – 1 November 1918, at the end of World War I. It was carried out by frogmen Lieutenant Colonel Raffaele Rossetti and Raffaele Paolucci, who used the Mignatta human torpedo to sink what they believed was the flagship of the Austro-Hungarian Navy, the SMS Viribus Unitis. She was anchored, with several other vessels, in the Adriatic port of Pula–the main naval base of Austria-Hungary. The raid succeeded in sinking the flagship and the abandoned passenger ship Wien, which had been used as a floating barracks until a few days before the raid. An estimated 300–400 crew members were killed when Viribus Unitis sank.

The raid took place during the dissolution of Austria-Hungary and the collapse of its armed forces at the Italian Front, which led the Austro-Hungarian command to request and negotiate the Armistice of Villa Giusti days later. In those circumstances, the Italian government ordered its armed forces to continue to advance as far as possible to occupy the territory that the Allies of World War I promised to Italy under the 1915 Treaty of London in order to entice Italy to join the war. Much of the territory was claimed by the National Council of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs established in Zagreb and claiming to represent the South Slavs living in Austria-Hungary. The National Council sought to unite predominantly South Slavic former Habsburg territories with the independent Kingdom of Serbia in a common South Slavic state by uniting and the independent.

The fleet anchored at Pula, as well as other Austro-Hungarian bases, was handed over to representatives of the National Council the day before the raid. Captain Janko Vuković, an Austro-Hungarian Navy officer, was appointed the commanding officer of the newly acquired fleet and promoted to rear admiral. The National Council declared neutrality in the war and informed the Allies of the new development. And many non-South Slavic crew members left the ships believing the war to be effectively over. Discipline among those who remained aboard was relaxed to the point that the ship was illuminated, and a self-governing sailors' council was established that declared a separate commanding officer for the Viribus Unitis, limiting Vuković's authority.

Rossetti and Paolucci were discovered after placing two explosive devices and captured before the explosion that sank Viribus Unitis. They were briefly interrogated aboard the flagship, released, and then recaptured. They were released on 3 November, when Italian forces arrived in Pula, and later awarded the Gold Medal of Military Valor for the successful execution of the raid.