CATASTROPHE: Greek Tragedy

Outward-bound to Rotterdam with a treacherous cargo of scrap-iron last week, the 5,815-ton Greek freighter Tzenny Chandris had barely cleared the port of Morehead City, N. C. when in the lash of a whining nor’easter she sprang a leak. After a three-day battle against heavy seas, the boat was in bad shape off Cape Hatteras. her frightened crew of 28 begged Captain George Coufopandelis to flash an S. O. S. to one of the several vessels which passed by. But he ordered them back to the failing pumps, confident the old freighter, bought from the U. S. Maritime Commission, would ride out the storm. . As their plight grew worse. Third Engineer Bortas Balaskas slipped into the radio room at 4:15 a. m., stood over the operator with drawn knife, commanded him to break the captain’s orders and send a call for help. It was too late. Dislodged as the gale tossed the ship, the Tzenny Chandris’ cargo shifted. She listed crazily, water rose in the hold, the pumps ceased as the freighter foundered. All hands scrambled excitedly off into the dark, cold water.

Thirty-two terrible hours later Commander Henry Coyle’s Coast Guard cutter Mendota picked up the last of the 21 survivors who clung to bobbing bits of debris. Captain Coufopandelis bore a painful gash on the bridge of his nose, the bite of a sailor who shared the captain’s improvised raft and went mad from drinking salt water. The others, six of whom were saved by the C. D. Mallory tanker Swiftsure, told a gruesome tale. The sea had suddenly become alive with sharks.Helpless comrades could only look on as the man-eaters tore the bodies of two seamen to bits, pulled a third through his life belt.

Churning the water with their feet as the sharks slashed at them, the other terror-stricken sailors drove off their tormentors. Finally Lieut. A. C. Keller spotted the survivors from his naval plane, dropped smoke bombs and plunged down in dangerous power dives which frightened off the sharks long enough for the Mendota to reach the scene, pull the exhausted mariners from the water 40 miles from the grave of the luckless Tzenny Chandris.