Georgios Averof is a Greek warship which served as the flagship of the Royal Hellenic Navy during most of the first half of the 20th Century. Although popularly known as a battleship , it is in fact an armored cruiser, and one of a handful of such ships still in existence – the others being the protected cruisers Aurora and USS Olympia.
At the start of the 20th century Greece's navy was obsolete, consisting of three old battleships and some torpedo boats. In the shipyards at Livorno, Italy a battleship which had been ordered by the Italian Navy and then cancelled is found by the government of Mavromichalis. The Greek government buys the ship and it is christened the George Averoff after the wealthy benfactor.
The “Averoff” was launched on the 27 th February 1910 and arrived at Faliro Bay on the 1st of September 1911, where the Greeks welcomed it with enthusiasm. The ship saw its first action in the First Balkan War of 1912 under the command of Admiral Pavlos Kontouriotis. The ship ruled the northeast Aegean and was an important part in the liberation of Mount Athos and the islands of Limnos, Thasos, Samothraki, Tenedos, Aghios Eustratios, Mitilini, and Chios. The power of this ship and the success in the Aegean kept the Turkish Sultan from challenging the Greek Navy and kept the Turkish Navy out of the Aegean. In the Battle against the Turkish fleet Kountouriotis sent the message to the ships of his fleet which have become famous:
The Averoff flew the Greek flag in Constantinople with the victorious allied troops at the end of World War I, and carried Greek troops to Smyrna during the Asia Minor campaign. When World War Two broke out and Greece had to evacuate its army and government the Averoff sailed to Egypt and then was sent to Bombay to patrol the Indian Ocean. In September of 1944 the Averoff brought the government back from Egypt to the liberated Greece. In 1952 the ship was decomissioned and moved to the island of Poros where it was used as a training ship. In 1984 it was restored and moved to Faliron as a floating museum where it honors those who served and died by hosting day visits from schools, institutions, organizations and private individuals. Those visits fulfilled the vision of George Averoff who wanted the ship to serve an educational purpose.
http://www.ahistoryofgreece.com/averoff/index.htm
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