In 1912, the Italian warship Regina Margerita reached Karpathos Island and released its anchor. However, the chain got loose fell into the sea along with the anchor.  The Italian admiral who was on the ship immediately asked for the help of the local people on the island.

Fishing in the Turkish waters

On that particular day, there were no available diving machines in Karpathos, because they had been taken aboard the fishing boats to the Kyrenean Sea. They couldn’t even find a suitable diver on the island. A small boat filled with Italian officers then set of to find a diver in Symi. There, they were told about Stathis Hatzis, who at that particular moment was fishing secretly with dynamite in Turkish waters. The Italians were taken to his home by some Symian officers. His wife was scared and after a lot of pressure she revealed that her husband was fishing in Kalousouro, also known as Kato Giorgis.

When Hatzis saw the red Italian flag, he mistook it for a Turkish one and used stones to sink his shallop, close enough to the surface of the sea so as no water could enter it. He hid himself along with his assistant in a nearby rocky formation. “Stathis, they are not Turks, they're Italians, show yourself” a Greek officer called out, and only then did Stathis come out of his hiding place.

They thought he had been drowned

He was then taken to Karpathos, where he tied a rope around him and dove into the water while holding a large stone, in order to reach the bottom more quickly.  Two more men were up on the surface, ready to pull him up if anything went wrong. He remained at the bottom for four minutes and six seconds and the ship's Italian doctors thought he had drowned.No man could survive so long underwater, they thought.

They pulled him up, but he had not achieved to tie the anchor, because he spent time looking for it. He rested for a while, was examined by the doctors and then he dived in again, eventually managing to tie the anchor to the chain. While heading up, 20 meters before reaching the surface, Hatzis had blood coming out of his ears and nose.

The Italians were very pleased and impressed by him and asked him if he wanted them to do him some kind of favor. He insisted he did not want anything, but they offered him 20.000 drachmas and a permanent pass signed by the queen so that he could travel on Italian ships, military or passenger ones, for free whenever he wanted to. He then asked for a ticket to America in order to work there, and they immediately gave it to him. When he got there, however, he was struck by stomach cancer and returned to Symi to die on its soils, as it eventually happened. He was only 58 years old.
TEXT-PHOTOS: GEORGE ZAFEIROPOULOS
SOURCE: www.greecewithin.com