He was promoted to sub-lieutenant in 1922 and to lieutenant in 1925; in 1929 he was sent to Tianjin, where he assumed the post of deputy commander of the Regia Marina detachment at the Italian Legation until 1932.

Calvi was heavily depth charged and seriously damaged, leading Longobardo to order to surface in an attempt to escape at full speed while fighting off the sloop with the submarine's deck guns.

After surfacing, Calvi was immediately targeted by Lulworth's machine gunners, which cut down most of the Italian gunners; the submarine unsuccessfully fired two torpedoes at Lulworth and then evaded two ramming attempts by the British vessels, but the third attempt succeeded in destroying one of Calvi's propellers, leaving the submarine dead in the water.

At this point Longobardo gave order to open the seacocks to scuttle the boat, and to gather on deck to abandon ship; immediately thereafter, however, he was killed when Calvi's conning tower was hit by one of Lulworth's shells.

Shortly thereafter, Calvi sank with the loss of 42 of her 77 crew, as well as one British officer who had led a boarding party in an unsuccessful attempt to capture the submarine after Longobardo's death.