On October 22, 1943, a German mine detonated near Kalymnos and blew the entire bow off the Greek destroyer Adrias. The e...

On October 22, 1943, a German mine detonated near Kalymnos and blew the entire bow off the Greek destroyer Adrias. The explosion killed 21 men and wounded 30 more. What happened next became one of the most remarkable feats of seamanship in World War II. Commander Ioannis Toumbas refused to abandon ship. HMS Hurworth moved in to assist and struck a second mine, sinking immediately. Adrias, bow gone and barely afloat, limped to the Asia Minor coast and anchored in Gümüşlük bay, where the crew improvised temporary repairs, sealing and shoring what remained of the hull. The destroyer sat in that bay for over a month. Then, on December 1, 1943, Toumbas gave the order to sail. Without a bow, Adrias covered 730 nautical miles across open water. She entered Alexandria harbour on December 6, St. Nicholas Day, and was received with full honours by Greek and Allied crews. The Greek Navy counts the voyage among the most significant examples of damage control in the history of naval warfare. Among the crew who kept the engines running throughout was Georgios Tassas, an engine-room sailor who had enlisted in 1942 at just 16 years old. Toumbas later wrote about the ordeal in his book "Enemy in Sight," first published in 1954 and awarded by the Academy of Athens. The Adrias had been delivered to the Greek Navy only a year before the incident, a British-built Hunt III escort destroyer that had already seen action in Allied convoy duty and the Sicily campaign. #Greece #GreekNavy #WWII