Comandante (Italian Edition)

The men who board the submarine Cappellini at dawn on September 28, 1940 to go to war know many things about their Commander. They know that he was on board the Malaspina when he sank the British Fame, that he is a magician, a fakir, a hypnotist, and that he never sleeps. They also know that the Commander could remain on land, safe, because an accident has condemned him to live in a steel brace that robs him of his breath. Yet, there he is, Salvatore Todaro, ready to lead them beyond the mines that make Gibraltar a trap, to fight for Italy in the open ocean, and "when he is sure, you feel sure."

Marcon, the deck hand, with his face disfigured by acetylene and that Venetian accent that the Commander likes so much. Schiassi, the radio operator, who with the hydrophone listens to the depths. Stumpo, the engine-coral diver, capable of recognizing female octopuses. Stiepovich, the lieutenant from Trieste who has brought his violin with him. Giggino, the steward, who still does not know how much fried potatoes warm the heart...

It is their voices that recount the dull monotony of the hours submerged and the crucial moment when, along the motionless line of the horizon, the silhouette of a merchant ship with its lights out comes into view. It must be sunk, the own and the enemy's death must be defied: it is then that the Commander makes a fateful decision, capable of illuminating the night. For the bodies floating in the black sea are not enemies for him, they are castaways.

Telling and restoring to our legitimate pride one of the least known and most luminous episodes of the last war, Edoardo De Angelis and Sandro Veronesi denounce the barbarity of any conflict and celebrate the greatness of the values of humanity when there are women and men ready to affirm them despite everything.

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