Maloja (ship, 1906)
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The cargo ship Maloja was a Swiss merchant ship that was sunk by British planes off Corsica on September 7, 1943 .
Technical and history
The Maloja was only brought under the Swiss flag during World War II. It is the second ship in the Swiss register for merchant ships. It belonged to the Schweizerische Reederei AG (Swiss Shipping Co. Ltd.) in Basel even before the entry .
The Maloja was completed at SP Austin & Sons Ltd., Sunderland in June 1906 as a coal steamer. At that time the ship was still called Tosto and its home port was Newcastle . The first owner was the Pelton Steamship Company. In 1932 the ship was sold to AP Anastassatos and renamed Panis . The new home port was Kefalonia . In 1937 it was sold again to J. Vassiliou, renaming it Highbury and its new home port in London . In 1938, AP Anastassatos acquired the ship a second time and named it Nora , with its new home port Panama . On December 5, 1940, the company was bought by the Schweizerische Reederei AG and renamed Maloja , the home port initially remained Panama. It should be noted that it was only possible to register seagoing vessels in Switzerland from April 9, 1941. This possibility was taken immediately, and from April 24, 1941 the home port was Basel .
The sinking
The Maloja left on September 1, 1943, a charge Copra the port of Lisbon with the aim of Genoa . On September 7, 1943, the Dutch captain Wouter AJ van Baardwijk wrote in his ship's diary; «Nice weather, calm seas, good visibility». When the ship was exactly north of Corsica, it was attacked at 16:10 by ten unidentified aircraft. These came down from the starboard side and without warning began to sweep the bridge, the wheelhouse and the crew on board with cannons and machine gun salvos. The ship began to burn after just two attacks. Then two torpedoes were dropped, one of which hit the starboard side forward. The captain ordered the abandonment of the ship and the lowering of the lifeboats. One of them was smashed by the propeller. On the other boats, the bullet holes had to be sealed with scraps of cloth. The crew just managed to get into the boats when the MALOJA, which was lying completely on its side, overturned and sank. It had been thirteen minutes since the first attack before the Maloja sank and left a large puddle of oil.
During the subsequent counting, three sailors were missing who either died in the hail of bullets or were thrown into the water when the torpedo exploded. Seven other crew members were injured. After one night, the twenty survivors reached the Corsican fishing port of Calvi . In his report to the federal authorities, the captain stated that an error could be ruled out, as the white SWITZERLAND inscription was repainted before leaving Lisbon and the planes had shot at the ship from around 50 meters away, including the Swiss flags attached to the fuselage were aimed. At this point in time, however, it was not possible to assign the aircraft because no one recognized their emblems. In contrast to the Chasseral , which was attacked in April 1944, no compensation was paid to the Maloja . Subsequent private inquiries by a former officer aspirant revealed that there is an entry in the archives of the American Navy; «7. September 1943 - Swiss ship 10 miles north of Cape Revellata, Corsica, mistakenly attacked, torpedoed and sunk by Beaufighter ». The wreck is located at a sea depth of 2800 meters.
A little odyssey began for the crew, as they had neither money nor papers. The Italians, who were in the middle of the armistice negotiations with the Allies , transferred them to Ajaccio . There they were taken by the French troops as fugitive German and Italian prisoners of war and put in prison. After the misunderstanding could be cleared up, another 14 days passed before they were brought to Algiers on a French auxiliary cruiser. It was only there that they were given new clothes from stocks of the American Red Cross, because the Italians had only given them worn-out Italian uniforms. After about 5 months in several groups via Casablanca , they finally reached the port of departure, Lisbon, where they met the two injured who had been hospitalized in Calvi.
literature
- Oliver Grivat: Swiss ships on all oceans , Mondo Verlag, Vevey 1986.