The Milos Dive Project

by Dimitri Galón

The small Greek island of Milos, which is located at the southwest end of the Cycladic island complex, is well known by most people around the world as the place where the statue of the Venus of Milos (today in the Paris Musée du Louvre) was discovered. Over the last few years this island has also become popular among the tourists who appreciate the simple life of the islanders, the many beautiful beaches with their glistering sand, the crystal clear waters and the very unusual volcanic environment both, above and under the water.

Today only few people know that during World War II this island became the scenery of heavy battles during the occupation by the German army and the reoccupation by the Allied forces. Being an important link between the island of Crete and the port of Piraeus – the island lies approximately half way between Piraeus and Crete, which are 150 nautical miles apart -, Milos was, both for the Germans and the British, of great significance for their military plans. According to the German writer Peter Schenk (Der Kampf um die Ägäis / The battle for the Aegean), Milos was an important issue for the German generals who planned the operation “Mercury”, better known as the battle of Crete.

29th of April 1941 Landing of the German troops. Adamas - Milos

Apart from preparing their forces´ attack on the island of Crete, they also had to establish bases, which increased their possibilities for major operations. For this purpose the occupation of the island of Milos was a top priority issue. During April 1941 and after the fall of the front in northern Greek territories, the Greek military units as well as the British started to evacuate the mainland heading for the island of Crete.

29th of April 1941 Landing of the German troops. Adamas - Milos 

They used every floatable vessel to flee from the attacking German army, who focused on the major ports of the mainland and the strategically important Greek islands, using as their main weapon the Luftwaffe. It is not an exaggeration to say that during April 1941 it was raining bullets and bombs all over Greece, especially over the Aegean, which was totally under the control of the German Luftwaffe. During that time, precisely on 21, 23, 24, and 26 April 1941, the ships “Popi Sigala”, “Sifnos”, “Pangration”, “Sonia” and “Maria Stathatos”, which had mainly evacuated Greek and British soldiers, were attacked by German airplanes and sunk in the bay of Adamas, which is the natural harbour of Milos and one of the biggest natural harbours in the Mediterranean.

Maria Stathatos, ex Welsh City. Sunk in bay of Adamas - Milos on 26th of April 1941 by Luftwaffe 

Finally, the German units occupied the island of Milos on the 29th of April 1941. Years later the scenario changed when the allied forces started to attack the German bases in the Aegean as part of a military plan aimed at the reoccupation of the strategically important Greek islands. During February 1943 British airplanes attacked and sank, also in the bay of Adamas, the ship “Artemis-Pitta” which had been commandeered by the German army and used for food and fuel supplies of the German units for the islands of the Greek archipelago.

These days all these facts seem to be like a forgotten nightmare from a violent, military past. But the truth is that all these implements which have been used mainly to support huge killing machineries, are still lying on the bottom of the sea forgotten and rusty, being the only eye witnesses which may inform us not only of a violent and bloody past, but also of historical, social and emotional events who may still participate somehow today as invisible fragments in our lives.

In order to examine and document these important to us facts in every aspect, we, a group of divers, plan to dive during September 2007 to the above mentioned wrecks, which are located between 40 and 70 meters deep in the bay of Adamas off the island of Milos.

Having been a member of an earlier expedition, who explored the wreck of “Artemis-Pitta” in September 2002, I send this article with some photographs of my first encounter with one of the wrecks, which will help the reader to have a visible contact to this underwater war reliquary. In the new expedition we plan to focus primarily on the rest of the wrecks, which lie on the bottom of the Adamas bay not far from each other.

Finally we would like to thank Kees Hofwegen and the team of GAP Diving Software for their help and support for our project.

website: http://www.theabyss.gr/archives/dgalon.htm