[3] At the time of Italy's entrance into World War II, she was assigned to the 71st Squadron (VII Submarine Group) based in Cagliari.

In October 1940, she was sent to patrol off La Galite first and then transferred to the area about 60 miles north of Cap de Fer.

In the afternoon of November 9, 1940 Aradam left Cagliari and to patrol off La Galite along with four other submarines (including Alagi and Axum) as a screen to British Operation "Coat".

Between the end of July and the beginning of August, Aradam was sent with three other submarines to an area southwest of Sardinia to screen British Operation "Style", but she failed to see any enemy ships.

Aradam then moved further south and in fact on 29 September 1941, sighted a formation of British ships, but she failed to get involved.

On April 6, 1942, at 03:12 Aradam (under command of captain Oscar Gran), sailing east of Kélibia, sighted a large ship, later identified as HMS Havock, navigating westward in the direction of Cape Bon, and launched a torpedo at 03:17 from about 500 meters in the position 36°47′N 11°05′E / 36.783°N 11.083°E / 36.783; 11.083.

[5] According to other sources, HMS Havock stopped at 4:15 in the position 36°48′N 11°08′E / 36.800°N 11.133°E / 36.800; 11.133, perhaps to avoid the torpedo and was not hit, but was demolished by her crew once they realized the destroyer had run aground and could not be dislodged.

In mid-June 1942 Aradam was sent together with four other submarines, including Ascianghi and Dessiè to patrol off Cape Blanc and later between Malta, Pantelleria and Lampedusa in an attempt to intercept British convoy as part of the Operation "Harpoon".

On November 8, 1942 Operation Torch was launched: more than 500 British and American vessels escorted by 350 warships began landing 107,000 troops on the coasts of Algeria and Morocco, thus opening the second front in North Africa.

On November 16, 1942 Aradam (under command of Carlo Forni) at night entered the Bay of Bona and found a convoy of three transport with three escorts.

Aradam then shelled the ships with her deck gun hitting and slightly damaging one of the transports before diving to evade the escorts.

On April 10, 1943, she was at La Maddalena when the base was bombed by 84 US B 24 Liberator aircraft who sunk smaller boats and heavy cruiser Trieste, but Aradam was not hit but had two crew members wounded.