Greek divers discover Italian World War 2 submarine wreck

The Jantina, which had sailed from the Greek island of Leros with 48 sailors on board, sank on 5 July, 1941, after being hit by torpedoes fired by British submarine HMS Torbay.

The wreckage of the Italian submarine Jantina that was sunk during World War II by the British submarine HMS Torbay, lays south of the island of Mykonos, in the Aegean Sea, Greece, November 3, 2021.

Greek divers have discovered the wreckage of an Italian submarine 80 years after it was sunk by the Allied Forces in the Aegean Sea during World War Two.

The Jantina, which had sailed from the Greek island of Leros with 48 sailors on board, sank on 5 July, 1941, after being hit by torpedoes fired by British submarine HMS Torbay.

She was discovered last month by Kostas Thoctarides, one of Greece’s best-known divers, and his team, south of the island of Mykonos at a depth of 103 meters using a remotely operated underwater vehicle, the ROV Super Achilles, which carried out a detailed visual inspection of the wreckage.

“Naval history is like a puzzle, and this is part of that puzzle,” Thoctarides, a maritime expert, told Reuters. “The confrontation of two submarines is a rare naval event.”

Jantina’s identity was verified using records from Italy’s Naval History Office, Thoctarides said.

She is the fourth submarine located and identified by Thoctarides.