RAMB stands for one of the youngest monopoly societies in the history of colonialism. As one of the consequences of the great economic crisis of 1929, more famously known as the Great Depression, the price of cotton on the world stock exchanges fell rapidly, and the "Italian colonial empire", which was not abundant in ore and mineral wealth, was left without profit from the main export item. Salvation was found in bananas and other tropical fruits, so banana plantations are planted on large areas in Somalia and Eritrea. In order to centralize and increase profits, the Italian Ministry of Colonies establishes the "Regia Azienda Monopolio Banane", loosely translated - the Royal Banana Monopoly Company. It was founded in Mogadishu (today's capital of the unfortunate Somalia) in 1935, and after Italy's entry into the Second World War in June 1940, it was effectively prevented from doing business by the British blockade of the Suez Canal, while it formally shut down in 1946. The company is resuming work after the UN decision from 1950 to entrust Italy with the administration of the former colony for a period of ten years, which should be seen as one of the climaxes of the colonial way of thinking of the Western world, which in those very years came up with new ways of exploiting foreign countries without "threatening" formal sovereignty. Serbia, unfortunately, has managed to lower itself to the rank of countries whose "sovereignty" is still national, and material and mineral wealth belongs to everyone but the national.
RAMB III IN THE WAR YEARS
And what does all this have to do with "by ship of peace", the widely famous "Seagulls"? First of all, you should know that the ship was originally "christened" under the name RAMB III and launched in the Genoa shipyard Ansaldo in 1938 as one of four twin ships specialized in the transport of bananas. In order for the new export article to be transported to Europe with as few losses as possible, the transport ships had to have some kind of cooling system. Thanks to the imposing Fiat engines, which will be discussed later, and the carefully designed chambers in the large in the lower part of the deck, the temperature did not exceed two degrees Celsius, which was perfect for transporting perishable foodstuffs.
Encouraged by the success of Germany's offensive against France and the Benelux countries in May 1940, Mussolini decided to join World War II on June 10, 1940. In his memoirs, Marshal Badoglio recalled the words of the fascist leader: "I need a few thousand dead in order to go to the peace conference as a man who fought." It is estimated that almost half a million Italians lost their lives during the greatest war conflict in human history. The future "Galeb" was caught by the declaration of war in the Mediterranean, so it is armed with two 120 mm guns and eight anti-aircraft guns. The fate of the other three ships of the same class is interesting. The war finds them in East African ports, and at the beginning of 1941 they have to head for the Japanese shores in order to avoid capture or sinking. One ship was sunk on the way to the Far East, the other was captured by the British, but was later sunk by German aerial bombs, while RAMB II managed to enter Japanese service, changed its name to "Ikutagawa Maru" and was torpedoed by American aviation near the southern coast of Vietnam on January 12, 1945.
Our hero gets a dual role in the initial phase of the war - he takes part in securing the convoys that supply the Italian army in Albania, the Greek islands and in Libya, but along the way he also transports unpreserved meat thanks to his refrigeration system. During one trip to the Albanian port of Valona, RAMB III sailed accompanied by four merchant ships and the destroyer "Nikola Fabrizi", but they were intercepted by a group of English light cruisers. The command of the ship was not up to the task; after the salvo fired, the platoon disappears under the protection of the smoke screen, while the crew of the much smaller destroyer tries in various ways to save the unarmed ships. The climax of the battle occurs when an Italian destroyer tries to lure enemy ships into a minefield at the risk of falling victim to the mines herself. In the end, the injured man manages to get to the safety of the Walloon port, while the unarmed ships of the convoy are sunk. As the war progressed, the Regia Marina fleet (the official name of the Italian Navy at the time) became more and more exposed to enemy attacks, so in May 1941 the submarine "Triumph" (known to us for the landing of Major Hudson's first allied mission on Yugoslav soil near Perazić Dol on the Montenegrin coast in September of the same year) torpedoed the RAMB III in the Libyan port of Benghazi and significantly damaged it. Despite this, the ship's crew manages to sail more than 900 nautical miles and reach Sicily. From there, the ship was towed to the Trieste shipyard "Sveti Marko" where it remained for repairs until the capitulation of Italy in September 1943, when German troops boarded it and the ship's name was changed to "Kiebitz" (the bird Vanellus vanellus, better known in our country as vivak).
photo by daniel frke"Kibic" (future "Galeb") in camouflage pattern and German service;...
KIBIC AT A DEPTH OF 20 METERS
During October and November, the German High Command launched several offensives in order to clear the northeastern coast of the Adriatic from partisan and remaining Italian units who only wanted to return to their homes as soon as possible. That series of operations is popularly called "Rommel's Offensive" after the commander of the operation. As part of the "Wolkenbruch" (Cloud Break) plan, 22 assault-landing boats and a large number of trucks are loaded in Pula, and the freshly camouflaged "Kibic" disembarks on November 12 in the bay of Čikat on the island of Lošinj and thus begins its service in the Kriegsmarine (German Navy). As the specter of an Allied landing on the Adriatic coast besieged the supreme command in Rastenberg (Hitler's popular "Wolf's Lair"), so did the other warring parties, which were never lacking in these areas, the German fleet in the Adriatic had the task of making a potential landing difficult.
photo by daniel frke...the sinking of the "Kibica" in the port of Rijeka in 1944;
"Kibic" gets a new role - he becomes a minelayer, with one serious handicap; it did not have a gyroscope, so a smaller ship was added to make it easier to navigate. It is estimated that he laid more than 5.000 mines before he ran into one himself (and there are indications that he actually laid it). Again it was forced to evacuate to the port for repairs and this time the choice fell on Rijeka. He was found in the port of Rijeka by the bombers of the desert air group, which consisted of British, South African and Australian crews on mostly American planes. The decisive battle begins on November 5, when light twin-engine bombers of the "Baltimore" type come to a standstill on "Kibica". After one of the hits, the Germans demand from the fire command that the extinguishing of the ship starts while the air attacks are still going on, which is contrary to all international conventions. The drama is at its peak, the German anti-aircraft gun crews fire all calibers, Italian firefighters later testified that one sailor continued to fire despite a large-caliber bullet blowing his arm above the elbow. The fire was constantly spreading throughout the ship, and the firefighters were forbidden to leave the ship at gunpoint. The fire boat approaches the ship from the water and with its powerful pumps tries to contain the fire spreading from the oil tanks. But there was no escape, the ship tilted and began to fill with water. Angelo Fusini and Mario Zele are the names of the firefighters who died during the firefighting action, while around 16 of their colleagues were injured. The ship, the hero of our story, sinks to a depth of 20 meters in the harbor itself, and I'm not sure how many people believed that it still had voyages around the globe or that it would be greeted by honorary platoons from London's Tower Bridge.
MOVIE SHIP EXTRACTION
Rijeka was finally liberated from the Nazis on May 3, when units of the Fourth Yugoslav Army led by Petar Drapšin successfully surrounded and captured the Wehrmacht's 97th Army Corps with heavy losses. More than 6.000 partisans died by the time Hitler was already dead, but the race with the Allied army to enter Trieste took priority over human casualties. The Germans destroyed the port installations, and the new state had a complex task in front of it - how to restore the port of Rijeka, which generations longed for even before the founding of the state of the South Slavs.
Since numerous ports and waterways were blocked by shipwrecks, in 1947, the company "Brodospas" was founded in Split, specializing in the recovery of sunken vessels. Few ships could be repaired, most were scrapped, but they no longer hindered safe navigation. In the fall of 1947, work began on the recovery of the ship because it was estimated that it was possible to do so and there was a chance that it would sail again. First, underwater welders (one of the most respected and dangerous professions in shipbuilding) hermetically sealed the inside of the ship - which required hours of daily underwater work that lasted for months - and then thousands of tons of water were pumped out of the stern only, so that steel cylinders filled with water were submerged and tied to the sides of the ship. Water was pumped out of them and this created enough buoyancy to lift the monstrosity of about 4.500 tons. The same fire boat that tried to put it out less than three years earlier took part in all of this. "Jadran film" from Zagreb made a short documentary about this venture, which depicted the entire venture in the style of the most exciting thrillers. Finally, on March 16, 1948, the future "Galeb" was towed to the Uljanik shipyard in Pula, where a thorough reconstruction began. The highlight of the job was taking apart the engine down to the smallest screw, which was then boiled in fresh water to remove all traces of salt and corrosion. The reconstruction of the upper deck and salon was carried out in 1959 and 1960, and since then the ship has not changed its appearance significantly.
ALL YUGOSLAV GULLS
At first, it was considered to name the ship "Sailor", but the name "Seagull" was chosen after one of the most graceful birds of the eastern Adriatic and the Mediterranean in general. That bird is a symbol of the sea for most "continental" children who go there on vacation and watch the elegant white seagulls cruise using the air currents. The impression is spoiled to some extent when they see those same birds at dawn scrambling around the remains of rancid pizza from a bucket on the most beautiful promenade of the Bay of Kotor.
Yugoslavia already had ships with the same name in the period before the Second World War - in 1921 minesweepers were bought from Weimar Germany and one of them was named "Galeb". The ship had a displacement of 550 tons and was built in the port of Hamburg at the end of the First World War. After the end of the April War, it was captured by the Italians and was sunk a year later in the Libyan port of Benghazi. The second is a smaller steamer with its home port in Split, which was remembered as part of the auxiliary fleet that traveled from the island of Vis to the Italian coast, in the period when Tito and his staff had to flee the mainland as a result of the landing on Drvar in May 1944. In addition to ships, the name of the bird has a Latin name larus michahellis (the fossil remains of its ancestors date back to 30 million years old) are also carried by the most successful school-combat aircraft of the SFRY Galeb G2 and Super Galeb G4, a personal computer from the beginning of the eighties of the last century, milk chocolate that is still produced in Subotica, but also a school (pioneer) newspaper that began to be published in Rijeka in 1956. The term "galebarenje" can be described as an attempt to bring the resident male population from the Yugoslav Adriatic coast closer to female tourists who came from the hated capitalist West and filled the budget of the first country of self-governing socialism. The degree of success of those endeavors has never been determined, regardless of numerous attempts. In these attempts, they were helped by the verses of Oliver Dragojević and Rambo Amadeus, inspired by a bird that defies every storm and kisses the stars while folding its wings.
photo: photo archive of Josipa Broza Tita, Museum of YugoslaviaThe sailing of "Galeb" from the port of Split in 1961.
FAMOUS GUESTS, AU ACCOMPANYING HIPPO
The ship "Galeb" itself was a school ship in its purpose, but its role was curtailed due to the fame it gained while sailing with Tito on his state trips. The first in a series of these journeys started in the port of Zelenika in Herzegovina, and the destination was London in 1953, when the lifelong president of Yugoslavia paid an official visit to the United Kingdom and its Prime Minister Winston Churchill. In this text, we will not dwell on the voyages around the world's oceans, primarily to Africa and Asia, even to Indonesia, when the ship was nicknamed the "Ship of Peace" because of its role in the formation and development of the Non-Aligned Movement. Numerous world statesmen such as Nasser, Nehru, Sukarno, Indira Gandhi, Finnish President Urho Kekonen, General Secretaries of the Communist Party of the USSR Khrushchev and Brezhnev stayed on the deck and in the ship's salons, while the honor of the crowned heads was defended by the Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie. Among the church dignitaries, the Cypriot Archbishop Makarios III stands out, who at the same time performed the role of the President of Cyprus and was instrumental in founding the Non-Aligned Movement. In addition to world powers, Krleža, the famous sculptor Avgustičić, sailed on the ship, while Dobrica Ćosić posed on one of the anti-aircraft guns. During a visit to Liberia in 1961, President Tubman presented Tito with a small horse cub for which an improvised pool was made on the auxiliary ship "Lovćen" which accompanied "Galeb" on its travels. The sailors had to smear the little one with fish oil so that he would not burn in the equatorial sun, and everything ended happily with his permanent settlement on Brioni. In truth, the most famous jet-set couple of the time Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton never set foot on the deck of the Seagull during their stay in Yugoslavia where the "stronger" half of the acting couple played the other Tito in the film bra.
photo: photo archive of Josipa Broza Tita, Museum of YugoslaviaTito with Miroslav Krlež during his visit to Egypt and Sudan in 1962.
CADETS BELOW DECK
The Yugoslav Navy classified "Galeb" as a training ship, i.e. on it, cadets of military maritime schools gained knowledge and experience for their future calling. Numerous voyages were organized in Mediterranean ports and beyond, where future "sea wolves" had the opportunity to get acquainted with navigation equipment, mechanical machines, but also sailor "routines" such as endless washing of the deck and getting used to life in the cramped conditions of a long-sailing ship. The hero of our story had something to offer. The numerous rooms below deck consisted of a row of sleeping quarters for sailors, a barber shop with three chairs, a doctor's dispensary, bathrooms with dozens of sinks where the showers were placed in the middle of the room without any hope of privacy. In the common rooms, you could find a table for table tennis, darts, as well as a mural dedicated to the partisan struggle. Opposite the mural was a depiction of the Yugoslav coast with the most important ports and piers of the former Yugoslavia, where someone wrote in blue paint next to the port of Kardeljevo (the former and current name of Ploče) "Krepao je Kardelj", the ideological father of self-governing socialism.
From 1953 to 1990, the cadets of the Naval Academy had 29 school cruises. The first was also the longest with calls in the following ports: Toulon, Rabat, Gibraltar, Corfu, Alexandria, Lakatiya, Istanbul and Athens. With this, the pride of the Yugoslav Navy presented itself to the waters and shores of the Mediterranean in its new role. Trips to the waters of the Black Sea were not rare, so in 1985 the ship docked in Sevastopol in Crimea, Constanta in Romania, and during the passage through the Bosphorus and Dardanelles, it was stopped by a ship of the Turkish Navy to convey the greetings of its command and traditionally wish for calm seas in the rest of the journey. Before passing through the gate of the Adriatic, Otranska vrata, "Galeb" docks on the island of Vido where it pays respect to the fallen Serbian soldiers who had the strength to survive the Albanian Golgotha but not to recover on the island of Corfu, one of the few places in the Balkans that was not conquered by the Ottoman Empire. Traditionally, wreaths were laid in the Blue Tomb, a symbol of the suffering of the army and the people who refused to peacefully and without a fight become part of the Germanic colonial space.
The cadets of the naval teaching center in Pula have far less pleasant memories of sailing the "Seagull", who after completing the mandatory training were taken around the navy garrisons, ending with Kumbor. According to the memories of generations of sailors serving their military service, more than 1.000 people were boarded on the ship, who huddled in the suffocating and often too warm below deck and impatiently waited for their military post to be called.
SHIP-MUSEUM AND RIJEKA CREW
The disintegration of Yugoslavia and the beginning of one of the worst civil wars in Europe after the Second World War also affect "Galeb". It participates in the evacuation of JNA personnel and material assets from the Slovenian port of Kopar, and then remains at the dock of the Naval-Technical Overhaul Institute "Sava Kovačević", as the famous Arsenal in Tivat was called since 1945. In 1993 or 1994, he went on his last voyage under his own power, when he loaded the puppies and drove them along the Montenegrin coast. Upon his return, he goes to berth at pier number one, where he remains until the end of the nineties. Then Milo Đukanović appears out of nowhere, trades the ship for apartments that the army always lacked and sells it to an American shipowner of Greek origin, Papanikolaus, who intends to turn it into a luxury yacht intended for the enjoyment of a wealthy clientele. On the Paluba.info website forum, you can find testimony about the last days of the ship in the Tivat Arsenal. "My father transferred the last supplies of oil from the 'Galeb' when the ship was unloaded... One afternoon he came home from work all dejected and barely uttered: 'The atmosphere in the institute is as if someone has died - tomorrow the Galeb is leaving us'."
The "Peace Ship" was towed to Rijeka, where it was supposed to be converted into a ship for the entertainment of the rich. But the owner goes bankrupt and the ship rots at the dock of the overhaul institute "Viktor Lenac". Croatia declared it a cultural asset in 2006, and as the ship tilted to the right side due to the penetration of rainwater through the corroded deck, something had to be done. It was finally purchased by the City of Rijeka in 2009, and since then, work has begun to turn it into a museum.
*The author of these lines had the privilege of visiting the ship during May of this year. Work is progressing., it is planned that in addition to the museum part, it will also have commercial facilities such as a restaurant and a hostel. The effort of the team of the Museum of the City of Rijeka is clear, and the end of the work is in sight. On this occasion, I greet the curator Franka and the host of the ship Luja, with a paraphrase of the words of experienced sailors"The soul of the ship is the crew., the ship itself can be neither good nor bad". The current one "to the crew" I wish you all the best., a "Seagull" a long and peaceful retirement, with the hope that he will spend it with his visitors who will have something to learn from him.
