It remained, however, for another Italian naval officer to outdo those who "dared the undarable" at Buccari. Lieutenant Luigi Rizzo, with two small motor patrol boats, succeeded in sinking two huge dreadnoughts protected by an escort of fast destroyers. His story of the encounter is as follows:
We were returning to our base just before dawn on July 10, 1918, after a night of dull, monotonous work along the enemy's coast, when I saw smoke coming from ships nearly two miles away. I thought we had been discovered and were being pursued. The only way I could know what we had to contend with was to get nearer the enemy, so I turned the two boats in my command toward the distant smoke.
Soon I discovered that it was two of Austria's largest dreadnoughts protected by a great convoy of destroyers. Evidently because we were so small, we had not been seen in the darkness; and although we were poorly armed, with only two large torpedoes for each of our two boats and eight smaller ones to throw by hand, we crept ahead until we were inside the line of the destroyers, and slowly and quietly approaching the dreadnoughts. I headed for one of them which proved to be the St. Stephen, and Lieutenant Aonzo, in charge of the other boat, made for the other, the Prince Eugene.
Then the watch on the dreadnoughts discovered us and began to fire at us with their small guns. How we escaped destruction is a miracle. Lieutenant Aonzo sent his first torpedo, and missed; but the second struck the giant fairly. Both of my torpedoes struck the St. Stephen.
After that all was confusion and excitement. We were fired upon and encircled by a muddled crowd of destroyers. I turned my boat to escape. A destroyer stood directly in my way and I veered off and almost touched the bow of the sinking St. Stephen in passing. The destroyers gave their attention to me and this allowed Lieutenant Aonzo to escape.
I saw that I would soon be overtaken, so I sent two torpedoes at the nearest destroyer. The first missed, but the second hit the mark. There was a tremendous explosion. The destroyer wobbled and began to turn over. I put on all power and escaped in the darkness.
The whole thing did not take over fifteen minutes. When we were sure of our escape, the five boys of my crew went nearly mad with joy, hugging, cheering, kissing, and crying in their excitement at what we had done. They hoisted our largest flag and trimmed our boat with bunting. A short way from us we could see that Lieutenant Aonzo was doing the same.
We knew the reception we would have when those at home learned the story, but we did not expect so much. The King decorated and honored us, the Admiralty gave us prize money, and the people added their contributions to it, for they declared we doubtless saved the city of Ancona from bombardment.
Lieutenant Rizzo was promoted to the rank of Commandant although not yet thirty years of age.
The St. Stephen sank where she was torpedoed. The Prince Eugene was able to make for home, but sank before she reached there, a short way from the Austrian coast. At the beginning of 1918, Austria had four of these giant dreadnoughts; on July 11, she had but one still floating.