Technical
Signal letters: PUKK
371'6" x 52'1" x 24'3"
oil-engines producing 714 n.h.p
service speed 15 knots

The ship left Rio de Janeiro at 1000h on 22nd September 1943 for Bel�m do Par�, via Recife

The Itapagé was torpedoed & sunk by U-161 (Albrecht Achilles) at 15.30h (local time) on September 26th, 1943, about twenty miles south of Maceió, at 10.10S, 35.45W (Grid FJ 6711). The ship sank within four minutes. 18 crew (two of them died in hospital after being rescued) and four passengers were killed.

The survivors reached the coast in lifeboats at Jequiá beach, São Miguel dos Campos where they received first aid, food & clothes from the local population. Later they were transferred to Maceió where 22 wounded survivors were interned in hospital. On September 27, Domingos Silva Santos died in hospital because of his wounds & was buried at Santa Casa's cemetery, Maceió the same day. He had experienced another shipwreck before, when the Brazilian Arabutan was torpedoed & sunk by U-155 in March 1942.

Two days later another crewman, the machinist Antônio José dos Santos also died in hospital in Maceió.

Sources
Article in "Gazeta de Alagoas", 03.10.1943; in: Revista do Instituto Histórico e Geográfico de AL, No 33, 1977
História Naval Brasileiro, Vol. V - Tomo II, Serviço de Documentação da Marinha, Rio de Janeiro 1985
Dictionary of Disasters at Sea > perso.wanadoo.fr/cdasm.56/dictionnaire/351.pdf

Many thanks to Christine Hillmann for the extra information on this page.

Unless otherwise stated, all dates and times are from the German perspective and are given in CET.
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