The Wreck l'Astrée

Built in 1921 in England, the Astrée was a steel steamboat cargo ship transporting coal. By her original name Belbro, belonging to the Halifax Shipping Corporation based in Hull.
She measured 87 meters long by 13 meters wide and 5.4 meters deep draft. Weighing 2171 tons and powered by a steam engine.

In 1939, the ship came under the control of the National Maritime Society as part of the war effort and was used to transport heavy goods (coal, ore) in the Western Mediterranean (Oran) and the Atlantic (Casablanca ). On board, the crew was composed of 26 sailors, including two gunners charged with protecting the ship against enemy planes.

On December 5, 1942, l’Astrée was requisitioned by the Germans, and on May 1, 1944, returning from Egypt, it was torpedoed near Port-Vendres by an English submarine. Local witnesses say that the freighter, recognizable by its large black chimney, had passed Port-Vendres along the coast towards the north, when it was hit by a huge explosion. She was hit by a torpedo in the starboard bow. The submarine that fired the torpedo remained invisible, certainly ambushed near the very jagged coast in this region. After being seriously hit, the cargo ship turned back to reach Port-Vendres before the next day, but she did not arrive in time and sank after only a few minutes. The German batteries of Cap Béar, alerted, had bombarded at random hoping to flush out the submarine. But it had already fled without difficulty. No one knows what happened to the Astrée's crew and whether they escaped the sinking.


(Fortunes de Mer et Epaves dans le Parc Naturel du Golfe du Lion 1850-2018 par  Laurent Urios, Hervé Levano, Patrick Strazzera)