MV Nino Bixio

Nino Bixio was an Italian motor cargo ship built in 1941 by Giovanni Ansaldo and Company of Genoa for the Garibaldi group, a Genoese shipping company, and named after the nineteenth-century soldier who served under Giuseppe Garibaldi. She was completed in November 1941 as a modern single-screw ship with a diesel engine and a speed of 15 knots. On 17 August 1942 she was carrying several thousand Allied prisoners of war from Benghazi toward Italy when the British submarine HMS Turbulent hit her with torpedoes, killing 336 of the prisoners. The ship stayed afloat and was towed to Pylos in Greece, where she was beached. She was later repaired, remained in merchant service until 1970 and was scrapped at La Spezia in 1971. Memorials to the dead stand at Pylos and in Athens.