During the final voyage of the early 20^th century ocean liner The Arcadian, the presence of an enemy submarine was detected near the island of Ikaria, in the Ionian sea. The captain, Charles L. Willats, tried to try to escape by sailing into the Aegean.

The Arcadian was was moving at 13.5 knots, escorted by the HMS Sentinel. On April 15, 1917, at 17:40, the convoy was between the Cycladic islands of Siphnos, Antiparos, Sikinos, and Folegandros, with good sea conditions and nothing foreshadowing what was about to happen. At 17:44, the Arcadian was rocked by an explosion. The German submarine UC-74 launched a torpedo, which struck the ship on its starboard side, between the bridge and the foremast.

Captain Willats ordered the engines to stop and sounded the alarm for passengers and crew to move to assembly stations. The crew acted exemplarily, having completed a lifeboat drill just ten minutes before the torpedoing. The captain lowered the lifeboats and the evacuation began as the ship began sinking bow-first, developing a list to port.

The captain remained on the bridge overseeing the evacuation and monitoring the ship’s condition. The military personnel evacuated the ship with discipline and composure. Five minutes after the explosion, as the bow submerged, a loud noise was heard, the ship suddenly listed, and the stern lifted out of the water.

The Sentinel launched six rafts and rescued 123 survivors. At 20:30, French warships from Milos arrived at the wreck site and continued rescuing survivors clinging to wreckage as others were in rafts and lifeboats.

Out of the passengers, 1,058 were rescued, while the remaining 279 were lost in the Aegean.

For stoker Thomas Threlfall, the experience of being shipwrecked was already known. He had previously survived a shipwreck on April 14-15, 1912, exactly five years earlier as a crew member of the…. Titanic. “It was the same day and month that the Titanic sank, but in both cases, I survived!”

The majestic ocean liner was on the bottom of the Aegean for 107 years, and the search for it began in British and German Archives. The wreck is located at a depth of 163 meters southeast of Sifnos and remains in excellent condition, discovered in 2024 by researcher Kostas Thoctarides and his team – using a Remote Operated Vehicle (ROV) – southeast of Siphnos, at a depth of 163 meters.

Underwater visibility in the area is excellent, as in most parts of the Aegean. Submarine currents keep the waters clear, while marine life on the wreck is relatively sparse. The davits that once held lifeboats now hang with fishing lines and gear. During the ship’s sinking, the smokestacks were detached.

The ship was built in 1899 at the Vickers, Sons & Maxim shipyard in Barrow-in-Furness, England for the Pacific Steam Navigation Co.

It was 152.4 meters in length and 16.9 meters in width, equipped with two propellers and a triple-expansion steam engine, capable of traveling at a service speed of 14 knots. It was initially named Ortona, and with the outbreak of World War I it was requisitioned by the British Admiralty to be converted into a troopship.

The Perpetrator

The UC-74 was a UC II class submarine built in 1916 at the Vulcan shipyard in Hamburg. According to the logbook found in the German archives, it sank 37 ships, 10 of which were Greek.

The war diary of the submarine describes the sinking of the Arcadian in detail. Captain Willats, in his 23 years of service on Royal Mail Line ships, was lucky, like Mr. Threlfall. The former had survived two other shipwrecks besides the Arcadia.