"Six Italians, dressed in rather unusual diving suits and equipped with materials of laughably little cost, have swung the military balance of power in the Mediterranean in favour of the Axis". Sir Winston Churchill, on the sinking of HMS Valiant and HMS Queen Elizabeth by Italian Combat Divers

The term "ARO" is the Italian one for "Autorespiratore Ad Ossigeno", or Oxygen Rebreather. The 02 rebreather, or ARO as we'll call it here, in historical context is very  closely associated with the Italian Navy and that Navy's exploits in the Mediterranean during the second world war. The very idea of diver-conducted sabotage operations, as have been highly refined by the US Navy SEAL teams, British SBS, and Russian Spetznaz, as well as other lesser known services, all started with a dedicated and highly expert group of Italian Naval Divers known as "Grupo Gamma" or  "Gamma Group". These divers activities actually began in the First World War, when manned torpedoes known as "Mignatta" were used by Lt. Raffaele Paolucci and Maj. Raffaele Rossetti to sink the Austrian battleship Viribus Unitis in the harbor of Pola. The sinking of a 21,000 ton ship of the line by two men using crude equipment (the manned torpedoes were run on the surface, the warheads detached by the swimmers, and then run back for the escape on the surface) was a tour de force of asymmetric warfare. In the 1930's, equipment and techniques were under continuous development, with the firm of Cressi manufacturing rebreathers and other diving equipment, and the firm of Panerai making great advances in diving instruments, particularly watches, depth-gauges, and compasses. In the late 1930's, the "1 Flottiglia Mas", or "1st Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron" was formed at La Spezia. This then had an offshoot, the "X Flottiglia Mas", which was dedicated to the design and use of various assault craft. The term "SLC", or "Siluri a Lenta", "Slow-Speed Torpedo" was used to describe a manned torpedo on which the divers (2) sat riding the vessel to the target, where they would detach the warhead and make their escape after attaching it using magnetic clamps to the enemy vessel. It was aboard these SLC's, known to their crews as "Maiali" or "Pigs" that the men of Grupo Gamma sank over 200,000 tons of shipping during the second world war. Possibly the most interesting part of this operation came when the Italian tanker Olterra was used from anchor in the Spanish port of Algesiras, where the Pigs were launched into one of her cargo tanks, exiting the side of the ship through a hole that had been cut below the waterline.  From this ship, over 20 attacks were launched. Possibly the most famous attack was in the Egyptian harbor of Alexandria, where 6 Pigs were used to sink the HMS Valiant and the HMS Queen Elizabeth, two English battleships of 33,600 tons each. After the war, gold medals of bravery were awarded to the divers, and even more interestingly it was the Captain of the HMS Valiant who pinned it on the chest of Durand De La Penne, the man who had sunk his ship. Bravery knows no national boundaries. Both the techniques and the equipment were copied, and the modern US Navy SEAL wearing a Viking drysuit, Draeger LAR-V, and riding a Swimmer Delivery Vehicle is removed by 60 years and very little else from his historical predecessor who wore a Pirelli drysuit, a Cressi ARO, and rode a Pig. The bottom line is that the Italian Navy invented this mode of warfare, and the equipment that is still considered state-of-the art all started in a little workshop in La Spezia, Italy. It is in the historical context written about above that we must view the latest ARO from a small company still located in La Spezia. Although constructed of modern materials, these rebreathers are made in the same city using the same essential design as was used during the war. You will want to compare the rebreathers pictured here with the earlier Cressi ARO-57, which is examined elsewhere on this website. Both have been official issue to the Italian Navy. Interestingly, the scrubbers and other parts still interchange.  OK, here's the good stuff: