On October 22, 1943, the Greek destroyer Adrias was creeping forth on a nighttime diversionary raid in the Aegean Sea when disaster befell her from an unexpected quarter.
Christos Papasifakis, then the ens
On October 22, 1943, the Greek destroyer Adrias was creeping forth on a nighttime diversionary raid in the Aegean Sea when disaster befell her from an unexpected quarter.
Christos Papasifakis, then the ensign commanding the ship’s stern 4” gun turret, recounted the nightmarish events that followed in a remarkable narrative collected and published online by his cousin George Krestas.
There was a blinding flash of light followed by that dreadful whump sound of a huge explosion and the whistling hail of metal that knocked us over and send the ship skyward…
The ship [then] took a considerable downward angle, and I slid forward, against the gun base, while bits of metal and human parts flew in all directions, raining down like hail… A hot putrid air wave reeking of diesel fuel and burning flesh stormed through the ship that stung my eyeballs and made my lungs hurt.
A German mine had just blown the 85-meter-long vessel’s bow clean off. Her bridge lay in ruins, her captain Ioannis Toumbas wounded; her forward gun turret twisted from its mounting until its gun barrels faced the bridge. The captain’s nephew, Konstantin Themelis, lay trapped inside, his knees broken.
But somehow the truncated destroyer remained afloat.
The surviving crew then spotted an enemy “torpedo boat.” Papasifakis readied his gun turret to open fire—only to realize he nearly had “the (dubious) honor of being the first ship in history where her stern had fired at her bow!”
But the Adrias’ ordeal was just beginning.
Battle for the Dodecanese
On April 23, 1941, naval cadet Papasfikos and several comrades fled newly Axis-occupied Greece for Turkey and from there headed south to Alexandria, Egypt. There they rejoined surviving elements of the Royal Hellenic Navy.
Following two years of training, Papasifakis joined the crew of Adrias, a short-range British Hunt-class escort destroyer transferred to the Greek navy.
Adrias was a Type III model armed with torpedoes, three rapid-firing flak guns, and two twin 4” gun turrets to protect convoys against marauding submarines and bombers. Despite having run aground shortly after departing being commissioned, Adrias was credited with sinking one or two U-Boats early in 1943 (in fact, neither kill claim appears to be accurate), and supported the Allied landing in Sicily.
On September 8, 1943, Italy surrendered to the Allies. Consequently, the Italian-occupied Dodecanese islands speckling the waters between Greece and neutral Turkey were suddenly up for grabs. Their capture might deny Germany vital bomber bases, thereby opening a supply line through the Bosporus Straits to the Soviet Union.
The British inserted several battalions of infantry on the islands—but couldn’t provide air cover for the distant outposts. The Americans thought the venture foolish and refused to help. German forces in the Balkans, benefiting from air superiority, began landing operations to take back the islands one by one.
Stukas at Night
On October 20, Adrias was dispatched along with the destroyers Jervis, Pathfinder and Hurworth to resupply British troops on the Dodecanese island Leros. While two destroyers slipped into the harbor of Lakki to unload supplies on the night of October 21-22, Adrias and Hurworth launched a diversionary raid on Kalymnos island.
However, they couldn’t find any ships to sink. But as they began cruising back at 3 AM—only to come under attack by Stuka dive bombers. While illuminated the destroyers with flares, others plunged in near-vertical dives to release bombs.
Holding fire to remain concealed, Adrias did it best to dodge the bombs.
“Zigzagging and the sudden turns at high speed, oftentimes, made the ship list more than 20 degrees. But all men stood at their stations, holding to stanchions lest be washed overboard, waiting for whatever could happen next. Meanwhile, the bombs falling around us raised enormous columns of water drenching everyone and creating massive waves smashing onto the sides of the ship accentuating Adrias' pitching and rolling and causing the deck edge occasionally to be underwater…”
Eventually, the Hurworth’s crew tossed a smoke float into the water, diverting the bombers’ attacks. The destroyers slipped away in the darkness—accidentally dipping into neutral Turkish coastal waters, dodging shells fired by a garrison at Kefaluka.
But Adrias received unwelcome news—the other two British destroyers hadn’t been able to unload their cargo. So Adrias and Hurworth sortied again on the same mission at 7:30 PM on October 22, again dodging fire from a Turkish battery while crossing the