u/GeneralPink99

After a catastrophic fire on march 23rd, 1994 while docked in Piraeus the Epirotiki cruise ship SS Pallas Athena (ex French Line's SS Flandre) was withdrawn from service and the nearly 42 year old burnt hull of the ship was towed to Aliaga, Turkey for scrapping on Christmas Day, 1994. By 1994 only two French Line ships were remaining: The Epirotikis SS Pallas Athena (ex Flandre) and the NCL's classic Norway (ex France) which was scrapped at Alang, India after a massive boiler explosion resulting in 7 deaths in 2003. The SS Flandre was the first French Line ship bulit after World War 2. With a rich history of 40 years, 3 owners and 4 names she's also an icon of both crusing in the Carribean and the Mediterranean aswell as transatlantic crossings. Her story may hopefully be never forgotten.

Couldnt find much info on this picture because the pinterest and facebook post didnt say much about it

Wikimedia Commons description:

The cruise ship Flandre, 1967. This photograph was certainly taken on the Saint Lawrence River, between Quebec City and Montreal, probably on en:Lake Saint Pierre considering the width of the river.

Correct me if i'm wrong. The picture was taken around april 1937 during her world cruise shortly after the Golden Gate Bridge was opened to pedestriants.

Image from the wikipedia arcitle of the Oslofjord

You can notice that the stern nameplate was removed, i'm not really sure if this name plate from the stern (2nd pic) was taken when she was renamed blue lady or removed during a refit, but its is on sale can be purchased for 7,800£ per letter.

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Photo description: The photo was taken in her port of registry, Gdynia on her Maiden and last passanger carrying voyage, she would never return home.

The ship left Buenos Aires on the 24th of August on the return leg of its maiden passenger voyage and was near Pernambuco in Brazil, when World War II broke out. Initially the ship stayed at the Brazilian port for 40 days with the passengers having disembarked in Brazil rather than return to Poland. Then the essentially stateless ship sailed with her crew of 264. There were 20 women and 14 boy apprentices from a Polish sea school, aged between 16 and 18, among the party.[3] After wandering the Atlantic for three weeks the ship diverted to Southampton in the UK.[4]

As a transatlantic liner she made only one transatlantic voyage, never returning to her home port of Gdynia.

During the war the ship was rebuilt in Britain to become a troop transport. The ship was used to transport the West Nova Scotia Regiment from Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada to the U.K., embarking on 21 December 1939, sailing the next day and arriving in Gourock on the river Clyde, Scotland on the 29 Dec 1939.[5]

The ship was used during the Norwegian Campaign, in the area around Narvik. On 14 May 1940 she sailed from Tjeldsundet transporting British troops to Bodø.[6] Just before midnight German dive bombers attacked the ship three times in the middle of the Vestfjorden, setting the ship on fire, exploding ammunition, and killing several army officers and men.[6] One of the escorts, the destroyer HMS Wolverine, took off 700 survivors from the ship, while the other escort, the sloop HMS Stork, stood on guard and drove off other German aircraft, then took off the remaining survivors.[6] Both escorts, loaded with survivors, sailed for Harstad.

The abandoned Chrobry was sunk by aircraft from the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal on 16 May.[6] A considerable amount of equipment went down with the ship.[6]

October 21, 1988, the Epirotiki cruise ship Jupiter sank a few meters outside the port of Piraeus.

The ship was full of school children and their teachers from the United Kingdom when it sank after colliding with a car carrier. There were 415 students and 60 teachers from 30 different British schools on board the cruise ship.

The ship was hit just one mile off the port of Piraeus by the ship Adige (7th pic) belonging to Grimaldi Siosa .

Photos of the ship sinking as seen from Piraeus. The photos are from survivors of the shipwreck.The lifeboats were unusable. Most of the passengers and crew were transferred to smaller boats, as the water level rose to the upper decks, but 25 children rose to the surface of the sea as the ship sank and were immediately collected. The sinking resulted in the death of 4 people. In fact, 2 of the dead were from the crew. They were two oilmen, Messrs. Golematis and Psomas. In this link you will find excerpts from a book written about the accident. Names are mentioned both from the crew and from the people who helped in the rescue, among whom was the then harbormaster of Piraeus, Admiral (retd.) Manolis Peloponnese L.S.

who died in 2014 at the age of 74 a few days after the 26th anniversary of the shipwreckthe Jupiter, sank just 40 minutes after impact outside the port of Piraeus. Children from 15 schools, including TP Riley from Bloxwich, Streetly from Brownhills just at the start of the eight-day cruise, were faced with the worst nightmare of their lives.A passenger on the Jupiter was in the dining room when the accident happened. He described the scene. “There was a big black thing stuck to one side of the ship – all the walls were pulled back…like a sardine can thing – and the water was coming in hard.”A Bloxwich teacher, a 14-year-old schoolgirl from Streetly and two Greek sailors were also reported to have died. The injured, 64 people, including 30 schoolchildren, were hospitalised with minor injuries and the shock from the accident was great.

In a later study, twenty-five girls who survived the Jupiter sinking were compared to three other groups of girls, a total of 71, some from another school, 46 girls from the same school, who did not want to go on the cruise, and 13 girls who were in a group that almost wanted to go but could not get tickets. All of the children participated in a fear-control program, the Children's Manifest Anxiety Scale from the Birleson Depression Inventory. The children who survived did not become more fearful overall. Instead, they developed significantly greater fears of stimuli associated with the traumatic event.Susan Golding: "I slipped into the water and swam towards a large boat about 50 metres away. As the boat went down I saw a hand with a white handkerchief moving up and down in the water. I had to swim quickly or the current would take me under. The tugboat crew who were near me shouted 'swim faster'..."

Carol Gill: “ The water was warm… I turned to look at the ship. It had come to a vertical position and sank in less than two minutes after I had dived into the sea. The sea current was pulling me down. I was struggling to stay on the surface.” Nearby was an Indian girl, waving her arms and who did not know how to swim. The sea took us both down… quite deep… I tried to find her in the sea but I could not open it because of the oils in the water.”

Notes:

Description and pictures a greek website

The 4th pic is a re-creation of the sinking by me

I edited the desc a bit because the translation was a bit wrong

Photograph taken by Mrs Barbara Butler.

Source: thegreatoceanliners.com

I couldn't find much info about this ship, so don't expect things I write here are accurate. The ship began bulding in the late 70s as the greek ferry "Taygetos" intended for service in the mediterranean, but the ferry was never completed because the company went bankrupt. In 1987 the hull was purchased by the Sea Venture Cruise Line. The cruise line completly rebulit the ship above hull, adding it a futuristic superstructure. The ship would have panoramic lounge windows and balconied cabins, and it would service in alaskan waters. But when the ship was around 80%-90% completed structally the owners ran into financial trouble and the project fell through. The hull was renamed "Noahs Ark" and was towed to Perama, Greece and later put up for sale, the ship would never be purchased due to the state and outdated looks of the ship. After sitting abandoned for nearly 2 decades, In 2011 it was sold for scrap in Aliaga, Turkey. It never carried a paying passanger.