 Accounts show that the two submarines passed within four yards, with "Triad" cutting across the stern of the Italian vessel.In an account of the engagement published in 1940, Italian writer and then navy war correspondent Dino Buzzati, who interviewed the Toti officers and crew after their return to base, reports that both submarines were so close that an Italian gunner, furious because he couldn't yet train the gun to the British submarine, actually threw his shoes at the head of a British gunner.