Achille Lauro (ship)

--- CONTENT ---
The Achille Lauro was a cruise ship with a length of 192 m and a survey of 23,112 GRT. She ran on 1 July 1946 for Rotterdamsche Lloyd as Willem Ruys. In January 1965, the transfer to the Italian Lauro line and the renaming took place. The ship became known mainly through his hijacking in 1985. It sank in 1994 as a result of a machine fire.

Willem Ruys

In January 1939 construction began and the keel was laid. After the outbreak of World War II, the ship under construction was damaged in air strikes. On the orders of the German occupying power, construction continued, as the ship was to be completed for its own purposes. After continuous sabotage by Dutch resistance fighters, the unfinished fuselage was further damaged by bombing hits by the British Air Force, so that the occupiers surrendered it. After the end of the war, Rotterdamsche Lloyd decided to continue building the ship despite the considerable damage. On July 1, 1946, the steamer finally launched and was named Willem Ruys, named after the founder of the shipping company. In November 1947, the Willem Ruys was completed, and on the 2nd In December of the same year she left for her maiden voyage from Rotterdam to Indonesia.

On January 6, 1953, Willem Ruys collided with the Orange. The Orange had serious damage, on the Willem Ruys there were only small damages.

After the independence of Indonesia in 1949, passenger numbers declined more and more, so that the Willem Ruys was used from 1958 on the route to Canada and later to Australia and New Zealand. Following a further drop in passenger numbers, Rotterdam's Lloyd sold Willem Ruys to the Italian Lauro Line in 1965.

Achille Lauro

After the takeover, the ship was modernized and numerous modifications were made, which significantly changed the appearance of the ship. It received narrow high chimneys instead of the previous wide and flat, also extended superstructures and a sleeker bow. The previously grey hull got a blue coat of paint. Renamed Achille Lauro, the ship was initially used in the scheduled service to Sydney, from 1972 only for cruises.

The kidnapping

Initial situation
On October 7, 1985, Achille Lauro, who had left for a twelve-day Mediterranean cruise and was just on board with 680 passengers and about 350 mainly Italian and Portuguese crew on the voyage from Alexandria to Port Said in northeastern Egypt, was kidnapped by four Palestinian terrorists. They were members of the Palestinian Liberation Front, whose leader was Abu Abbas, and threatened to kill the passengers one by one, starting with the US citizens, if the State of Israel did not immediately detain 50 Palestinians accused of terrorism