This is a maritime story, but it begins on land. In the center of Drama stands an old mansion, which the townspeople call the “Marble House”. It was built in 1875 by tobacconist Ioannis Anastasiadis as a symbol of local urban prosperity. Almost a century and a half later, another outstanding Draminos, the founder of the AMEC “Kiklops”, the shipbuilder Aris Theodoridis, decided to save it from the ravages of time and turn it into a Camera Museum, which is currently being prepared. Before it opened, luck blessed it. Passing in front of him, Fani-Zioga Aslani, a native of the city, asked what would happen to the building and, having learned its new purpose, offered to donate an old camera that belonged to her father-in-law Petros to the collection. Aslani.

The camera was accompanied by several shocking footage negatives of one of our legendary warships of World War II, the destroyer Adrias, on which Aslanis served. This valuable material was the reason for the birth of the book. A biography of the ship titled “Adrias – they were all heroes” published by AMKE Kyklops signed by Margherita Purnara. For the first time, deep journalistic and historical research was carried out in Greek and foreign archives, as well as in primary sources, to trace the short but long life of this ship, from its first day until it was scrapped in 1945. The book takes us on a journey through the burning Aegean in 1943, and the epic unfolds over 200 pages with images of Petros Aslanis (the only one on the team who had a camera), as well as photographs from other sources, some of which were still unknown. .

We catch the thread of time in the historic shipyards at the Tyne Estuary in Newcastle, in the tanks of the Swan Hunter & Wigham Richardson Ltd shipbuilding company. There, on July 20, 1942, the Greek flag was hoisted on the Adria, handed over to us by the British to reinforce our stranded fleet, which continued the fight after Greece fell to the Nazis in June 1941. our ships, submarines and warships were the only free Greek territory, one such “homeland” from bow to stern. Sailors, officers and governors were well aware that they had to fight to rescue the rest of the Greeks from slavery.

The imposing, courageous Ioannis Toumbas, captain of the Adria, stood before his crew and made an outrageous speech: “Now your mothers, your brothers and your children are slaves. They are hungry. He is in the hands of the conqueror. It depends on you. You have a sacred duty to aid their freedom.” The consciousness of this responsibility was a heavy burden that the sailors carried on their backs. On a newly built ship, they participated in convoys in the Atlantic, where they tried to sink enemy submarines, and took part in the surrender of the Italian navy in Malta in September 1943. However, the peak of their courage came a month later, on a perilous mission to liberate the Dodecanese from the Germans. The operation ended in a tragic defeat for the British and their allies at the Battle of Leros.

On December 6, 1943, he sailed for Alexandria. Allied crews applauded, foreign ships raised the Greek flag. The Egyptians thought the Germans were defeated!

On the night of October 22, the destroyer was blown up near Kalymnos by a German mine, which cut off her entire bow. She lost 30 meters (out of 85 of her length) and still continued to swim, her boiler room was not damaged. Another mine in a matter of minutes sank the related English destroyer Hurvort, which was walking nearby. Nautical skill and selfless decisions of the stubborn skipper and the heroism of the crew saved the ship from certain death. They managed to blindly go to neutral Turkey, without navigational instruments, 16 miles. The book describes moment by moment what happened after the accident and becomes a living spectacle where the characters become flesh and blood and their tragic dilemmas become ours. We smell the burning sea from oils, hot sheets, blood, dismembered bodies.

In the bay of Gumoushlyuk, where there was a dam, since there was no nose, the Greeks summed up and buried the dead. Photographic documents of Aslani of that time are frightening. With the first rays of the sun, the sailor photographs the wreck of the ship and the corpses of his fellow soldiers. The scuttled destroyer remained for 40 days in Turkey for repairs, and then the captain, with the help of the British, conceived a plan to return to Alexandria. Thanks to the first engineer Konstantinos Arapis, who understood shipbuilding, a concrete wall was designed to seal the ship. It sounds unbelievable, but the padded Adrias, looking like a pile of scrap metal, overcame 730 dangerous nautical miles under the noses of the Germans who already dominated the Aegean Sea.

On December 6, 1943, he sailed in triumph for Alexandria. The reception he received was new. Allied crews cheered, merchants blew their horns, and foreign ships raised the Greek flag. The Egyptians thought the Germans were defeated!

Today, the only souvenirs left of the Adria are in the Greek Naval Museum: among them her official flag, her emblem, her wooden steering wheel. With the release of this edition, we now have a touching memory of its heroes who shone with Tumba, but never received the recognition they deserved: the first engineer, Dr. Andreas Kapodistrias, the officers, the team. A tribute that is 80 years late. Because they were all heroes.