The Slamat disaster is a succession of three related shipwrecks during the Battle of Greece on 27 April 1941. The Dutch troopship and the Royal Navy destroyers and sank as a result of air attacks by Luftwaffe Junkers Ju 87 dive bombers. The three ships sank off the east coast of the Peloponnese during Operation Demon, which was the evacuation of British, Australian and New Zealand troops from Greece after their defeat by invading German and Italian forces.
The loss of the three ships caused an estimated 983 deaths. Only 66 men survived.
Operation Demon
On 6 April 1941 Germany and Italy invaded Yugoslavia and Greece. An expeditionary force of British, Australian and New Zealand troops was already in Greece, but they and Greek defenders lost ground to the invaders and by 17 April the British Empire was starting to plan the evacuation of 60,000 troops.
Slamat was a Dutch troop ship, converted from a Koninklijke Rotterdamsche Lloyd ("Royal Dutch Lloyd") ocean liner. Since October 1940 she had been operating in the Indian Ocean, but in April 1941 she was ordered through the Suez Canal to the Mediterranean Sea to join Operation Demon.
Convoy AG 14
Slamat was in the Mediterranean by 23 April, and on the 24th she was one of six merchant ships that left Alexandria with Convoy AG 14 for Greece. British, Australian and New Zealand forces were spread over much of Greece, so on 26 April when AG 14 reached Greek waters, it split to reach different embarkation points. Slamat and a smaller troop ship, the managed by British-India Line, were ordered with the cruiser and a number of destroyers to Nauplia and Tolon on the Argolic Gulf in the eastern Peloponnese. The corvette swept Nauplia Bay for mines before the ships arrived.
Luftwaffe air reconnaissance found AG 14 at noon on 26 April. The invaders had air superiority, and Royal Air Force capacity to resist was being reduced daily. On 24 April the Belfast Steamship Company troop ship had grounded in the fairway in Nauplia Bay, blocking ship access to the port. The next day an air attack turned the grounded ship into a total loss. Ships would now have to anchor in the bay and tenders would be needed to bring troops and equipment out to them from the shore, so the landing ship, infantry (a converted Glen Line merchant ship) was sent to deliver several Landing Craft Assault to Nauplia. However, on 26 April a Junkers Ju 87 Stuka attack disabled Glenearn, so she put her LCAs ashore for use at Monemvasia and was towed to Souda Bay. En route to Nauplia the convoy was attacked by aircraft and a number of bombs hit Slamat, causing heavy damage on B and C decks, destroying two of her lifeboats and wounding one crewman. The Germans recognised that the ships would embark troops overnight and leave early the next morning (27 April), so General der Flieger Wolfram Freiherr von Richthofen, commander of the VIII. Fliegerkorps, planned to attack the ships as they left their various embarkation points.
At 2340 hrs on 26 April the light cruisers and joined Khedive Ismail, Slamat, Calcutta and four destroyers in the Bay of Nauplia. The destroyer patrolled against the risk of submarines while the other ships took turns to embark troops. The only available tenders were landing craft A5, local caïques and the ships' own boats. One caïque, Agios Giorgios, was a large boat with capacity for 600 men. There was a swell and a light wind, and in the dark there were one or two accidents and one ship's whaler capsized. Calcutta and Orion embarked 960 and 600 troops respectively; the destroyers and 500 and 408. The slow rate of embarkation meant that Khedive Ismail did not get her turn and did not embark any troops.
At 0300 hrs Calcutta ordered all ships to sail, but Slamat disobeyed and continued embarking troops. Calcutta and Khedive Ismail sailed at 0400 hrs; Slamat followed at 0415 hrs, by which time she had embarked about 500 troops: about half her capacity. An estimated 700–2,000 men were left behind, but Hotspur remained at Nauplia to embark as many of them as possible.