Oria
SHIP PARTICULARS
FIRST NAME: "Oria"
TYPE: Cargo ship
YEAR: 1920
COUNTRY: Norway
FIRST OWNER: Fearnley & Eger, Oslo (old Christiania)
SUBSEQUENT NAMES/OWNERS:
1941: "Sainte Julienne"/ French Government (Vichy)
1943: "Oria" / Mittelmeer Reederei Gmbh - MMR
BUILDER: Osbourne, Graham & Co. Ltd
LOCATION OF YARD: North Hylton, Sunderland (England)
YARD No: 222
DATE OF LAUNCH: 17-06-1920
DATE OF COMPLETION: November 1920
WEIGHT: 2127 GRT
LENGTH: 86.9 m
BEAM: 13.3 m
HEIGHT:
SCREWS: 1
ENGINE: Triple expansion
SPEED: 10 knots
FATE
Wrecked during storm (February 12, 1944).
DETAILS
At 17:40 of 11 February 1944 the Norwegian cargo ship Oria left the harbour of Rhodes under German command. On each side of her hull the letters POW (Prisoners Of War) were painted in white, since she was overloaded with more than 4000 Italian Military Internees headed to Piraeus. The internees were supervised by a small contigent of German soldiers who were departing the island on a leave. The ship's escort was composed of three small Italian destroyers, captured by the Germans after the Italian surrender in September 1943. Those were the TA 16 (ex Castelfidardo), the TA 17 (ex San Martino) and the TA 19 (ex Calatafimi). The Oria was armed with a semi-automatic anti-aircraft gun and a 88mm gun. In order to save fuel, the speed was maintained at 7 knots. The cargo holds were so overcrowded that some Italians had to be accomodated near the bridge while the German soldiers occupied the main deck. None of the Italians wore lifebelts, while all the Germans were equipped with one -even two in some cases. Everybody onboard was feeling nervous, as the possibility of an Allied attack was highly probable.
Aproximately four hours after its departure the small convoy was spotted by Allied planes and almost immediately attacked -without success- with torpedoes and bombs. Later in the night the sonar of the TA 17 picked up a submarine echo and depth charges were used without any visible result. According to some sources the ship escaped from a torpedo attack by the Dutch submarine Dolhpin, while sailing off the island of Astipalaia (a.k.a. Stampalia) about 10-20 miles from Rhodes. It seems that the submarine fired three torpedoes that missed the ship but it hasn't been confirmed that the targeted vessel was actually the Oria. At 06:00 of 12 February the convoy passed under the protection of the Luftwaffe, which provided air cover with four Ju-88 flying in two-hour rotating shifts. The weather got progressively worse with strong winds (88-102km/h) and very high waves which caused problems to TA 17 and TA 19 which experienced frequent rudder malfunctions. Many Italians in the cargo holds of the Oria began to experience severe seasickness but they were unable to reach the open deck to get some fresh air, as the Germans had blocked all access to the upper decks in order to prevent mutiny.
As darkness fell, the convoy sailed past Cape Sounio with almost zero visibility. White flares were used in order to maintain visual contact of the dangerous waters near the rocky islet of Patroklos. The narrow passage between the east coast of this islet and the southwestern coast of the province of Attica is about 0.6 miles wide and 2 miles long. Although the waters are quite deep, at some point there is a reef about 150m wide where the waters are very shallow. In order to avoid the reef it was decided that the four ships should keep a new northwestern course, sailing past the islet of Patroclos from the west. The TA 19 radioed to the Oria the new course and the cargo ship replied that the order was rceived, but continued sailing towards the rocks. The commander of the convoy -who was on the TA 19- ordered the captain of the destroyer to approach the Oria and to fire red flares in order to warn her of the serious danger. Sadly, it was too late. At 18:45, the Oria hit a rock named Medina (located near Patroklos) with her starboard side. After the crash the ship got stuck and started to sink fast as the hull began to break wave after wave.
The scenes that followed were chaotic. Through the roar of the wind and the hissing of the steam released from the boilers, rose the desperate cries of the thousand poor souls trapped in cargo holds with no means to escape. Panic spread on the upper deck too with men jumping into the sea from both sides of the ship, only to be fatally thrown against the rocks or the ship's hull by the huge waves. When Oria broke in two pieces those on deck tried to launch a lifeboat but the davits jammed. In the attempt to fix the problem the boat was released from one side only and remained hanging vertically from the blocked davit. Its occupants fell into the waves and were killed. Some men, including German soldier Oscar Ernst Meyer, chose to remain on the sinking vessel as long as possible and tried to reach the stern. Before long Mayer was swept away by the waves and struggled to stay afloat in the icy-cold water. On the other end of the ship one of the Italians, Sergeant Giuseppe Guarisco, was also hit by a wave and ended into the capsized bow through a partially opened door that led into a small storage room. There he found six of his comrades, all alive. After some time the bow stopped sinking and the seven Italians decided to wait the morning light in order to search for a way out, as the only door to the compartment got jammed. In the water, Oscar Ernst Mayer was desperately trying to stay alive, fighting against the extreme cold and the attempts of several drowing men to grab onto him in order to remain afloat. Eventually he found a door and managed to get some rest on it, while drifting into the small bay located opposite of Patroklos island. However, as the door reached the rocks near the shore the waves brought him under the surface once again and he alsmost drowned. Eventually, he found his way to a beach, where he met two more survivors, one of the Geman operators of the AA-gun and a Greek crew member. The three exhausted men found shelter nearby and tried to stay warm for the night.
Next morning, three Italian and two Greek tugs, all under German command, sailed from Piraeuss trying to find the Oria, assisted by planes. The planes were spotted by the seven Italians trapped inside the bow, who had managed to open a sealed porthole. One of them managed to dive undewater and managed to escape through an opening. When he told the others, one of his comrades attempted to follow the same route but he drowned in the process. Giuseppe Guarisco and the other four decided that it was safer to wait for rescue as the bow was stable and they had sufficient breathable air through the open porthole. Later in the morning, one of the Italian tugs, the Vulkan, arrived to the scene of the disaster, rescuing the Italian who had managed to escape from the bow. Risking their lives, the men from the crew of the Vulkan tried to open a hole into the hull to save the rest of the men but the portable oxygen device they were using fell into the water. The rescue operation resumed the next day, when a second Italian tug, the Titan, arrived with another oxygen device and a hole was finally opened. Giuseppe Guarisco and his comrades were finally rescued about 40 hours after the collision.
Mayer and the few other survivors who had managed to swim to the nearby beach of Charakas were rescued too. The Greek villagers who arrived at the beach the day after the sinking, found it covered by aproximately 1500 dead bodies. When the Germans arrived, they collected only the bodies of their own soldiers and took with them the Italians who were still alive. They also created a huge mass grave (100m x 2m), where the dead prisoners were buried. Bodies continued to surface for five more months and in many cases the locals provided for their burial in local cemeteries. In 1958 a farmer working near the beach found a human skull and later many human bones. Sometime between 1960 and 1965 the Italians retrieved the bones found by the farmer and those found inside the mass grave.
The TA 19 also faced serious danger during the storm. After the accident of the Oria she was ordered to change course but one of her rudders blocked. As the destoyer became almost uncontrollable the high waves damaged the radio apparatus and caused many problems onboard. The captain of the TA 19 fell from the bridge suffering two fractures and the Third Officer was also seriously injured. Thanks to the efforts of the crew the rudder was repaired at 21:30 and the three destroyers left for Piraeus, unable to rescue any survivors.
LOSS OF LIFE
a) According to the most recent research, conducted by Aristotelis Zervoudis and publiched in the Greek history magazine Maches & Stratiotes ("Battles & Soldiers"), the total losses were 4095 Italian Military Internees, 15 Germans and 21 crew (all Greeks). The sinking was survived by 21 Italian Military Internees, 5 Germans and 2 crew (the Norwegian Captain and a Greek engineer).
4131 (victims) + 28 (survivors) = 4159 (all included)
b) The book written by Gehrard Schreiber gives 4062 dead internees (out of 4073).
4062 (victims) + 11 (survivors) = Total: 4073 (Italian Military Internees only)
c) In the July-August 2002 issue of the Greek magazine Polemos kai Istoria [War and History] there is detailed article about the story of the Oria, written by Aristotelis Zervoudis. The article also included information taken by the book 53 Imeres 1942 [53 Days 1942] written by Vassilios Mentogiannis. According to this article, on the Oria there were 4233 Italian military internees, guarded by a unit of 30 German soldiers. Aproximately 60 more German soldiers were using the ship for their transfer to Pireaus. The crew was composed by five men plus a Greek Engineer and the Norwegian Captain. The survivors were 49 Italians and the 7 men of the crew, while 15 Germans lost their lives.
4199 (victims) + 131 (survivors) = Total: 4330 (all included)
d) In the Italian archives there is a document (22-1-1948) related to the loss of the Oria. According to this, on the ship there were 4115 internees (incl. 43 Officers, 118 non-commisioned Officers, 3885 soldiers) from the Army, the Navy and the Air Force. The survivors were 28 (21 Italians, 6 Germans, 1 Greek). If we accept that the Germans were 90 and the crew members were 7, then we have:
4184 (victims) + 28 (survivors) = 4212 (all included)
In 2010 the relatives of the dead created a very active research group, which managed to collect a great amount of information about the people who were onboard. Thanks to the efforts of this group a complete list of all the Italian Military Internees of the Oria is now available. In addition, the group has created a virtual Memory Wall ("Muro della Memoria") with photos of the victims.
The sinking of the Oria remains one the biggest disasters in maritime history in terms of loss of life.
LOCATION OF WRECK
The few remains from the wreck of the Oria are located near the entrance of the straight water passage between the islet of Patroklos and the coast of Attica (37°39'N, 23°59'E). After the wreck of the Oria was auctioned, Greek commercial divers (brothers Nikos and Pericles Liamis) made several dives and cut the ship's hull between 1951 and 1953. The collected metal was sold for scrap. During their work they retrieved many human remains, military tags and personal items, belonging to the ill-fated Italian military internees. Those remains were later delivered to diplomats sent from the Italian Embassy in Athens. Some were buried near the beach at Legrena and some were sent to Italy. As expected, not much can be seen on the seabed today. In the debris field there are many oil drums, several pieces of twisted metal, military boots and boxes of ammunition (37mm and 88mm). Even today human remains are still buried under the sand, along with military mess kits.
In recent years a memorial plaque was placed on the seabed by diver/researcher Aristotelis Zervoudis and a relative of an Italian victim. In 2014 a memorial to the disaster was erected by the main road that connects Athens to Cape Sounio.
According to this wreck survey (June 15, 1949) the wreck of the ORIA was found in two pieces: The bow section (depth 8-16m) was completely destroyed but the hull plates were visible on the seabed. The stern section (depth 24-40m) was about 35m long and in good condition. The boilers, the engine and the aft mast were found still in place. [Personal archive of Kostas Thoctarides]
SOURCES
www.piroscafooria.it - Oria Reseach Group [mainly Italian]
I MILITARI ITALIANI INTERNATI NEI CAMPI DI CONCENTRAMENTO DEL TERZO REICH 1943-1945: TRADITI, DISPREZZATI, DIMENTICATI - Gehrard Schreiber [Uff.Storico SME, Roma, 1992]
POLEMOS KAI ISTORIA Magazine - Article by Aristotelis Zervoudis [July-August 2002 issue]
STRATIOTES @ MACHES Magazine - Article by Aristotelis Zervoudis [May - June 2018 issue]
PERSONAL ARCHIVE OF KOSTAS THOCTARIDES.
AVVENIMENTI IN EGEO DOPO L'ARMISTIZIO - RODI, LERO E ISOLE MINORI (Vol.XVI, LA MARINA MILITARE ITALIANA
NELLA SECONDA GUERRA MONDIALE) - Aldo Levi (compilazione) and Giuseppe Fioravanzo (revizione). [Uff.Storico della Marina Militare Italiana, Roma, 1972] - Document No.41/22-1-1948.
www.miramarshipindex.org.nz - Online ship index
www.wrecksite.eu - Online wreck index