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- Ελληνικά
This is the penultimate year of World War II. Italy has capitulated (8 September 1943) and the Germans now occupy the Dodecanese. The Italian garrison has surrendered and is in captivity.
In the afternoon hours of 11 February 1944, 4,046 Italian soldiers were crammed into the holds of the Norwegian ship Oria, which had been requisitioned by the German authorities. The ship of only 2,127 tons was a freighter and had been built in England in 1920.
The "Oria" left Rhodes in the early evening hours in bad weather for Piraeus. During her voyage she was attacked by English ships and by the Dutch submarine "Dolphin", but managed to escape with the help of the three light destroyers accompanying her.
In the evening hours of 12 February the ship, loaded with Italians, struck the rock Medina near the islet of Patroclus (latitude, 37o 39 north, longitude 23o 59 east), 25 miles SE of the port of Piraeus. The ship heeled over and began to sink. The sea in the area became a watery grave for thousands of Italians crammed into its holds.
In all, 4,074 people lost their lives (4,025 Italians, 44 Germans and 5 crew members). The survivors numbered just 28 (21 Italians, 6 Germans and the ship's Greek engineer). The almost total sinking of the 'Oria' was not only due to bad weather and the poor handling of the Norwegian master, but mainly to the suffocating confinement of thousands of people in the holds of a small and old vessel. The rumour circulated at the time that it was torpedoed by the submarine "Papanikolis" was not true, since that day the legendary submarine was sailing between Crete and Lebanon. Neither in the incidents of the Greek port authorities, nor in the Ministry of Merchant Shipping, nor in the Athenian newspapers that did not report a word. Even though the beaches from Charakas to Lagonisi were littered with corpses, resembling 'roe in a frying pan', as one local resident described it. Nazi censorship forbade the recording or publication of any relevant information.
In the following years many divers explored the wreck of the "Oria" and gave shocking descriptions. In 1999, the diver Aristotle Zervoudis carried out an extensive research on the wreck of the "Oria" and in 2002 he published for the first time the history of the sinking, as it was found in the archives of the German Aegean Naval Administration. The remains of the "Orias" are located at a depth of 28 to 42 meters.
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