Trust me, regardless how much you love summer, there's nothing like a warm Hellenic autumn. This year we are lucky to have one of those and even luckier to not consider them a rarity. Therefore, even in mid November one can enjoy an empty beach with warm water even at the Athenian riviera (which during high season is beyond crowded).
Like this one:
Today's goal though is not that kind of joy but to visit something that I feel ashamed I hadn't all these years that I passed by more than a zillion times. I knew that the most tragic shipwreck ever in the Mediterranean had taken place during WWII at the island of Patroklos (right here) but I didn't know that there's a monument about it next to the road here.
This one:
As you can see below it reads what happened in Italian and Greek:
If you don't speak either of these languages then it's all Greek to you, literally, so here's the story in more details:
Back in 1944, Italians who were captured by Germans were given the chance to either fight with them or remain prisoners. Hence many Italians disillusioned about fascism were sent back from Greece as prisoners with ships. One of them, was an already 22 years old Norwegian steamer named ORIA:
The above ship on February 11th 1944 prepared to travel from Rhodes island to Pireas. It was loaded with engine oil and truck tires but also (and most importantly) more than 4000 Italian prisoners. By the number alone you can guess how they managed to pack in all these people like sardines. 30 German soldiers were on board to guard and another 60 of them as passengers. The Captain was Norwegian while among the 5 people of the crew was a Greek mechanic.
ORIA was escorted by 3 Italian battleships commandeered by Germans. A few hours after it left the port of Rhodes behind, near Kos island, it was attacked by British ships but survived without losses. Next afternoon (Saturday 12/2) ORIA was near Sounio where it faced strong West wind of 10 Beaufort. At 18:45, during a storm, the ship fell with its right side on the rocks of Patroklos island, flooded and flipped in only a few minutes with only its bow above the waterline at relatively shallow waters (5 to 40meters deep).
Due to the crazy weather the escort ships didn't manage to help and made it to Pireas instead where they informed the German authorities. Those came late to the rescue next morning and saved the few survivors they found. The crew of the first tug ship that managed to arrive realised in shock that at the bow area of the ship, the only part off the water, were 5 people trapped but still alive! The device they had with which they attempted to cut the bow and free the survivors was hit by a large wave and lost in the sea. These guys had to survive one more day till the next one when another tug ship arrived to rescue them.
Captain and crew survived, 45 German soldiers and 49 Italian prisoners. ALL the rest, beyond 4000 died, most of them trapped down in the ship's hold, making this the worst Mediterranean tragedy ever. Locals reported that the sea was washing out dead bodies for weeks and the Germans kept burying them around the coast.
It's shocking to read what survivors experienced. One of them was Pietro Sordi (1921-1989):
In his words:
"On 8th of September 1943 I was serving for the 312 "Carristi" batallion as motorcyclist at Rhodes. From 8th to 12th I fought against Germans at Centrale (not sure which place he means by "Centrale"). I was then captured and prisoned at Trianda (that's Ialysos in Greek). On 11th of February I embarked on a Norwegian ship to be taken to Germany. (...) we gathered at the square of the commercial port of Rhodes, 4031 Italians. After a while we embarked, actually they packed us like sardines, in a freight ship of around 4000 tons, can't recall its name anymore (ORIA) but I heard it was Norwegian.
They put us one on top of the other, with rage and force, from some Germans who tried to pack higher load, they also brought down two ladders from the deck and they sat on the steps leaving an opening of 2 square meters to breath. They also loaded the deck till 4pm. Few minutes later the ship departed and we said a last goodbye to the beautiful town and the damned island of Rhodes.
The night of 11th of February was gray and blurry, the cold wind was blowing through the ship's masts, the sea was getting more rough (...)
All around the ship you could hear crying and screams of pain. The shipwrecked happened due to the rough sea and the Captain went out of his way on to a rock. Then the waves threw me up to the sand of the Greek coast, the Germans picked me up and took me at the concentration camp of Goudi (that's in Athens) with the rest of the survivors.
From one camp to another I finally was freed from the partisans of ELAS at Larisa. From the partisans I was handed over to the red cross and then to the Brits. I returned to Taranto on 3rd of March 1945 from Volos (Greece)".
Obviously impressive to read his story but have you noticed that in this craziness he paid attention to mention the beauty of Rhodes island? Apart from a very scenic one it's also a heavily Italian influenced island which (I guess) highlighted his impressions. Still impressive though, shows a man with taste.
However, if the above story is impressive brace for this next one from another survivor, Giuseppe Guarisco. Remember those 5 guys trapped in the bow of the ship waiting for help? Read in his own words:
"After the ship crashed on the rock I was thrown down and when I was able to stand up again a very strong wave pushed me to a very small department located at the bow of the ship, same level with the deck but its door just closed. There was still some light and I saw there were another six inside. After a while the light was gone and water violently started flooding. We climbed up to a closet to stay dry, once per while I was putting one leg down to check the water level. I laid down at night praying in fear that we might all go down to the bottom of the sea.
Hours passed by but no one came for help. One of us, taking advantage of a momentary opening of the door, dived quickly in an attempt to find a way out and after what felt like an age we heard him calling us from above. He then told us that he found an underwater passage. Another comrade, even though I tried to prevent him, decided to try the same way out but we never heard of him again.
The one who escaped told us that where we were, at the tip of the bow, it was the only part of the ship out of the water and no one was around to see except the planes that kept flying around and signaling. Later on a boat with two sailors approached and told us they were Italians from a tug ship commandeered by Germans. They also told us to stay calm and that we would soon be free. But it was already dark so we had to overnight one more time and actually an even worse time than the previous one.
When it finally dawned we heard replies to our cries for help. Some sailors came and cut an opening with a blowtorch. After 40 hours we were finally free to leave this tiny space which we believed it would be our grave".
No comments right? Unthinkable...
The monument was built in 2014, pretty late considering the size of this tragedy. Credits must be given to Aristotelis Zervoudis who started investigating this shipwreck in 1999 as a diver. For his contribution he was titled "Cavaliere dell’Ordine della Stella d’Italia" from the Italian President. From his archive is the picture of the ship ORIA you saw before.
Apart from this unprecedented tragedy this place is very beautiful. Here's a few pictures of Patroklos island taken from the coast:
Imagine that the ship hit this island at the right end of the following picture on its back side (South):
It's pure magic blue here:
The other monument here is a private one, irrelevant to the shipwreck (probably a car accident):
There's also a water tank here which got a funny shape due to the day to night temperature differences:
If you take a walk around you'll get the chance to see the beauties of the local flora:
In the following image I look at the monument and that ugly black tank (barely seen in the middle) while standing on the top of the local hill right next to the sea with Patroklos island on my back:
Wanna guess what are these white dots on the ground?
Empty snail cells!
It's full of them here so I suspect the local fish farm.
Here's a 4K video:
I wish there was no traffic so you could enjoy this even more but I guess you get an idea anyway.
See you on the next one!
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