As commander of "Sciré" Borghese took part in several raids using SLC. The first of these, in September and October 1940, . The September raid was abandoned when the harbour was found to be empty. In the October raid Borghese took "Sciré" deep into Gibraltar Bay, making a difficult submerged passage in order to release the SLC as close to target as possible. For this he received the Medaglia d'Oro al Valor Militare (MOVM), despite the mission's overall lack of success.