The traditional certification award ceremony was held yesterday at the Teseo Tesei Navy Diver and Raider Command (Comsubin), in La Spezia, at the end of the 2016 Navy Regular Diver Course.

The ceremony has been the crowning achievement after a 10-month hard training period, over which 7 young Navy divers were selected to join, as of today, the Comsubin Operational Divers Group (GOS), and conduct constant training and operations.

During the ceremony – which was presided over by Comsubin commanding officer, Rear Admiral Paolo Pezzutti – a memorial wreath of flowers, offered by the Retired Navy Divers Association, was laid as a tribute to the fallen of the Group.

The Operational Divers Group (GOS) is an Italian Navy élite unit, whose military commitments alternate with a variety of activities in support of the civil community, especially when it comes to health-care, scientific and social issues.

The multiple interventions carried out over 2016 ranged from littoral mine clearance - with 12,593 wartime ordnance defused and safely removed – to hyperbaric oxygen therapy, for the treatment of civilian patients. A noteworthy feature is the cooperation with ENEA (the Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development), which in recent years has adopted the Italian Navy standards and guidelines for the conduct of underwater diving activities during Italian expeditions to Anctartica.

Operations recently conducted by the Italian Navy Divers concerned the shipwreck of the Costa Concordia cruise liner in 2012, the collapse of the Genoa port control tower, the dramatic sinking of the fishing vessel crammed with migrants off the island of Lampedusa in 2013, and the tragedy occurred on 18 April 2015 in the Central Mediterranean, for which divers were involved for a long time in recovery operations.