Mount Etna railway sabotage from a submarine

The SBS moved from reconnaissance into land sabotage by using submarines of Malta's Tenth Submarine Flotilla as covert transports. After reconnaissance through HMS Urge's periscope, Tug Wilson and a Royal Marine named Hughes landed near a railway tunnel beneath Mount Etna and slipped past fishermen on the beach. They scraped away earth by hand rather than risk the noise of a pickaxe, then fitted a contact mine to the rail. A train approached while they were still finishing the work, forcing them to withdraw without knowing whether the charge had functioned. Urge later raised its periscope in daylight and saw the damaged train and repair crews. The shore team had struck infrastructure beyond the reach of the submarine's own weapons. Urge then sank a cruiser on its withdrawal and survived depth charging, adding the raid to a conventional combat patrol.