NEWS

Last surviving WWII Greek submarine hero dies

Last surviving WWII Greek submarine hero dies

The last surviving member of the Greek navy’s Papanikolis submarine, famed for its achievements in the World War II, has died. Nikolaos Tasiakos is to be buried in Halandri, northeastern Athens, on Sunday.

He died at the age of 101.

The Papanikolis was commissioned into the Greek navy in 1927 but the vessel and its crew shot to fame when they sank in December 1940 three Italian ships carrying arms and supplies to the Albanian coast for the troops from Italy that were trying to invade Greece.

Apart from the Adriatic, the Papanikolis also patrolled in the Aegean. She was decommissioned in 1945, after the end of the war. In October 2014, Tasiakos was awarded the Medal of Military Merit A’ Class.

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