Patria Disaster - Disaster

Disaster

Meanwhile, the Zionist organizations were considering how the deportation plan could be thwarted. A general strike had little effect. The Irgun attempted unsuccessfully to place a bomb on the Patria to disable it. The Haganah also sought to disable the Patria, with the intention of forcing it to stay in port for repairs and thus buying time that could be used to pressure the British to rescind the deportation order. The officer in charge of the operation was Yitzhak Sadeh, but his authority came from Moshe Sharett, who was the leader of the Political Department of the Jewish Agency in the temporary absence of David Ben-Gurion, who had left for the United States on 22 September and did not return until 13 February, 1941.

On 22 November agents of the Haganah smuggled a two-kilogram bomb on board the ship, timed to explode at 9 pm that day. It failed to explode, and a second, more powerful device was smuggled on board on 24 November. This was secreted next to the inner hull of the ship. At 9 am on 25 November, it exploded. The effect of the explosives had been misjudged and a large hole measuring three meters by two was blown in the side of the ship, which sank in only fifteen minutes.

At the time the bomb exploded, the Patria was carrying 1,770 refugees from the Pacific and Milos and had taken on board 134 passengers from the Atlantic. Most of these were rescued by British and Arab boats that rushed to the scene However, 260 others – mostly Jewish refugees – were declared missing, with another 172 being injured. Many of the dead were trapped in the hold of the ship and were unable to escape as the ship foundered. 209 bodies were eventually recovered and buried in Haifa.