posted 01-22-2001 09:59 AM
In what might be the largest post ever in this board I wished to remember a significant event of maritime history: the first political-driven hijack at sea.Photo of the "Santa Maria":
Click here for a larger version of the image
The Assault of the “Santa Maria”
22nd January of 1961, 1h30 am, onboard the largest and most luxurious Portuguese ocean liner, the “Santa Maria”, a group of 24 freedom fighters gather on the upper decks, protected by darkness. They are about to start “Operation Dulcineia”, the assault of the ship.
The plan and the men behind it:
Henrique Galvão was a Portuguese Army captain living in exile in Venezuela since November of 1959 and leader of DRIL - Iberian Revolutionary Leadership of Liberation - a structure composed by opponents to Franco and Salazar regimes. They were planning a revolutionary action against the fascist regimes that dominated the Iberian Peninsula at that time.
The planning of the attack had been finished in July of 1961, and was very ambitious: take control of the “Santa Maria”, travel towards the Spanish colony of Fernando Pó, in the Gulf of Guinea. After "conquering" it, his plan was to attack Luanda and, from Angola, start an action aiming the fall of the governments of Lisbon and Madrid.
The company official color postcard of "Santa Maria":
Click here for a larger version of the image
Why “Santa Maria”? Because the rebel group saw her as being much better than the several Spanish passenger ships that used to travel to Central America. Although "Infante Dom Henrique" (now the laid-up “Seawind Crown”) and "Principe Perfeito" (laid-up in Piraeus, Greece) were more recent and modern ships, "Santa Maria" was a prestige ship by excellence, owing that to the fact of being the only Portuguese ship of passengers to keep a regular connection between Portugal and the United States of America.
The Assault:
"Santa Maria" had left Lisbon on the 9th of January of 1961 on one of her regular trips to Central America, arriving to the harbour of La Guaira in Venezuela on the 20th of January.
Among the passengers shipped in this harbour, there was a group of 20 members of the DRIL. Fourteen entered the ship as regular paying passengers, the remainder used visitor passes and managed to stay onboard after the ship departure.
One day later in Curacao, Henrique Galvão and three other DRIL members entered the “Santa Maria” (Galvão was a figure knowned to the Portuguese state police, PIDE, and feared that entering the ship to soon would increase the risk of discovery by the ship officers).
The group members consisted of: 13 Portuguese, 10 Spaniards and 1 Venezuelan.
After leaving Curacao, "Santa Maria" sailed towards Port Everglades, in Florida, carrying 612 passengers and 350 crew members, under the command of the Merchant Navy captain Mário Simões da Maia.
At 1.45 AM (local time) on the 22nd of January of 1961, the 24 men under the command of Henrique Galvão took the navigating bridge and the wireless room, subordinating the officers on duty at that time. The third mate João José do Nascimento Costa that was on the bridge offered armed resistance to the attackers and after a quick firefight he was killed and another officer severely wounded (afterwards the Portuguese Government would state that this had been a cold-blooded murder). The captain (that was sleeping in his cabin) and the rest of the crew surrendered peacefully, and that ended the first part of the plan. In an act of defiance to the Iberian regimes, the ship was renamed “Santa Liberdade” by the rebels, in an allusion to the freedom that the peoples of Portugal and Spain were eager to obtain.
Afterwards, "Santa Maria" changed her route to East, trying to reach, as quickly as they can, the Atlantic Ocean. On the 23rd of January, the ship approached the Island of Santa Lucia and a ship launch disembarked two seriously wounded persons and five crew members for humanitarian reasons. This fact seriously compromised the possibility of reaching the coast of Africa without being detected (one of the stewards that landed in Santa Lucia cabled the company office in Lisbon and the Portuguese Government was alerted to the assault).
The Portuguese Government asked the British Government help to return the “Santa Maria” to her legitimate owners, so a British frigate (the “Rothesay”), after receiving approval from the Admiralty, was sent after the liner. Hours had passed since the departure of the “Santa Maria”, the search done by the frigate ended being fruitless, so she returned to Port of Spain for refuelling. The “Rothesay” didn’t return to the search (or any other British ship) because the Admiralty considered the liner to be out of reach by the Royal Navy. The Portuguese Government then turned to the United States Government for help. The U.S. Department of Defence considered the “Santa Maria” assault as an act of piracy, ordered the U.S. Navy to locate her and several vessels were sent after her.
The “Santa Maria” steamed during two days at full speed (she was suffering from engine problems and the hull in need to be cleaned), deeper in to the Atlantic Ocean but on the 25th, a Danish freighter spotted her and radioed her position, allowing an American airplane to locate "Santa Maria" some hours after that incident. Later that day the commander of the U.S. Atlantic fleet, Admiral Robert Dennison, talked on the radio with Henrique Galvão trying to arrange a meeting that allowed a peaceful solution to the problem.
The “Santa Maria” kept an Eastward course but was still relatively close to the Brazilian coast, so on the afternoon of the 29th January, when the liner was 30 miles of the Brazilian harbour of Recife, Henrique Galvão accepted to meet a delegate of Admiral Dennison, the Rear-Admiral Allen Smith.
Two days later, January 31st, an American fleet composed of four destroyers approached the liner, 35 miles of the coast of Brazil. The Rear-Admiral Smith was sent onboard the liner for a meeting with Henrique Galvão. The meeting ended 3 hours later and was inconclusive but Captain Henrique Galvão had partially agreed to dock in the nearby port of Recife the following day so that the passengers could go free.
On the following day, February 1st, “Santa Maria” was still at sea but closer to shore and was being kept under close surveillance by five warships (2 American and 3 Brazilian). Henrique Galvão wanted to refuel the ship and return to sea but the Brazilian Government wasn’t going to give permission to that.
Finally, on the 2nd February, "Saint Maria" anchored in the Brazilian harbour of Recife, allowing the landing of all the passengers and members of the crew. The sinking of "Santa Maria" was taken in consideration, but they gave up of that idea and next day they surrendered to the Brazilian authorities asking for political asylum.
"Santa Maria " was then returned to her legitimate owners: Companhia Colonial de Navegação.
The passengers of "Santa Maria", were then transferred to "Vera Cruz", which left Recife on the 5th of February, and arrived to Lisbon nine days later, after having stopped in Tenerife, Funchal and Vigo. On the other hand, "Santa Maria" sailed from Recife on the 7th February, arriving to the Tagus River, in Lisbon, on the 16th February, going alongside the Alcântara quay and received a hero’s welcome. All the top members of the Portuguese Government appeared to welcome her and that included the dictator Salazar who personally shakes the hands of all officers and crew.
The arrival of "Santa Maria" to Lisbon after the assault:
Click here for a larger version of the image
Final words:
The Portuguese regime tried to portrait Portugal as a quiet, peaceful country, where everybody agreed with the policy imposed by the State backed União Nacional (Portugal only official party). The raid proved the contrary: there were great internal divergences (muffled by the repressive means of the State police - PIDE) and this gesture was the only way that the political opposition could strike a blow at the regime façade.
The “Santa Maria” raid fell to relative obscurity after all this years (the idea of hijacking a plane/ship for political motives spread like a wild fire in the years to come, especially in the 70’s and 80’s), and in the collective memory the “Achille Lauro” assault became almost a trademark for ship hijacking due to political reasons, but there is a pivotal difference on the two events: the only death onboard the “Santa Maria” happened because the officer tried to defend the ship bridge at all cost, while on the “Achille Lauro” a helpless passenger was murdered.
But both incidents were equal in one aspect: they tarnished the memory of two perfectly good ships that shouldn’t been remembered that way.
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Regards
Paulo Mestre
[This message has been edited by PauloMestre (edited 01-23-2001).]
posted 01-22-2001 09:59 AM
