A story by Sharon Blomfield in The Sifnos Chronicler
Good stories never die. Some – maybe the best ones – merely lie dormant, lurking unseen, for up to years at a time and when the right story-teller comes along, stir themselves back to life.
So, I imagine, Antonis Grafas might say. A professional diver, he is a passionate explorer of sunken wrecks in the Greek seas, each with its own tale to tell. But the power of the story he uncovered on the sea bottom near Sifnos and the hold it took on his imagination surprised even him.
This story begins in 1943 on the night of November 7 when a crew of six airmen, members of the British RAF’s 38th squadron, climb aboard their Vickers Wellington bomber in Berka, Libya and head out as the lead aircraft on a wartime mission over the Aegean aimed at freeing the islands of Greece from German and Italian control. Somewhere above Naxos, they are struck by enemy fire and forced to ditch in the sea.
