WWI shipwreck Arcadian found off Sifnos

The British ocean liner Arcadian, torpedoed by a German U-boat and sunk during World War I, has been discovered by researcher Kostas Thoktaridis and his team. The wreck was found southeast of the Cycladic island of Sifnos at a depth of 163 meters. The Arcadian, which went down taking 279 men with it, was en route from Thessaloniki to Alexandria, Egypt, with 1,155 military personnel on board. The presence of an enemy submarine near Ikaria necessitated a detour through the Cyclades to avoid detection.

On April 15, 1917, the Arcadian was traveling at 13.5 knots, accompanied by the escort ship HMS Sentinel. The convoy was situated between Sifnos, Antiparos, Sikinos, and Folegandros when a torpedo fired by the German submarine UC-74 struck the Arcadian at 5:44 p.m., causing a devastating explosion.

“The quality of the primary metals used in the Arcadian’s construction has significantly contributed to the preservation of the wreck,” Thoktaridis told the Athens-Macedonian News Agency (AMNA). “It seems that the bow of the Arcadian initially settled on the Aegean seabed, resulting in visible deformations of the plates. Given the ship’s length (152.4 meters) and the relatively shallow depth of the sea (163 meters), the bow’s impact helped to stabilize the hull on the seafloor,” he added.

Soure: ekathimerini.com