Santa Maria

[john sefton]

Owned by the Lisbon-based Companhia Colonial, the ship was the second largest ship in the Portuguese merchant navy at the time and along with her sister ship, the Vera Cruz was among the most luxurious Portuguese-flag liners of that time.
The ship was primarily used for colonial trade to the Portuguese overseas provinces of Angola and Mozambique, in Africa, and migrant transportation to Brazil. The ship's mid-Atlantic service was also viewed as rather out of the ordinary: Lisbon to Madeira, to Tenerife, to La Guaira, to Curaçao, to Havana (later San Juan), and lastly Port Everglades. The average trade for this gray-hulled ship was mostly migrants to Venezuela and the general passenger traffic.
On January 23, 1961, the ship had 600 passengers and 300 crew members. Among the passengers were men, women, children, and 24 Iberian leftists led by Portuguese military officer and politician Henrique Galvão.
Henrique Galvão was a Portuguese military officer and political foe of Portuguese dictator António de Oliveira Salazar, the head of the Estado Novo regime. Galvão had carefully planned the hijacking with the intention of waging war until Salazar was overthrown in Portugal and the overseas territories were subsequently offered independence. He planned on using the hijacking as a way to bring attention to the Estado Novo in Portugal and the related fascist regime in Francoist Spain.
The rebels boarded the ship in La Guaira in Venezuela and in Curaçao, disguised as passengers, bringing aboard suitcases. The suitcases had secret compartments to hide their weapons. The rebels, along with Henrique Galvao, seized the ship, ceased all communication, and killed one officer (3rd Pilot Nascimento Costa) and wounded several others in the process of taking complete command over the ship. The rebels forced crew members, along with the captain of the ship, Mario Simoes Maia, to take the ship on a different course.
The whereabouts of the ship remained unknown for several days, until a massive United States search effort by air and sea uncovered and communicated with it in Mid-Atlantic. Thereafter, a fleet of United States naval vessels, including not less than four destroyers (some of which contained USMC infantry belonging to "G" Company, 2nd Battalion of the 6th Marine Regiment out of Camp Lejeuen, NC) under the command of Rear Admiral Allen E. Smith short-circuited Galvao's plans, when his forces surrounded the "Santa Maria" some fifty miles offshore of Recife, Brazil. The following day, Admiral Smith left his flag ship the USS Gearing and proceeded via launch to the "Santa Maria" to engage in negotiations with Galvão.
Because of an anticipated change of Presidencies in Brazil (the incoming President being more sympathetic to Galvao's political interests), it was not until the very next day that the Santa Maria, surrounded by United States naval vessels, entered the harbor of Recife. There, Galvão and his 24 leftist terrorists surrendered the Santa Maria, 600 passengers and crew of 300 to Brazilian authorities in exchange for political asylum.
Galvão later announced that his intentions were to sail to Angola, to set up a renegade Portuguese government in opposition to Salazar. Galvão's stories of these accounts were translated into English and into a book as Santa Maria: my crusade for Portugal (New York, 1961).

The Santa Maria later resumed her Florida-Caribbean sailings, but inevitably she grew older and, like her sister and most passenger liners of her time became less and less profitable, mostly due to the increased competition with the arrival of the Jumbo Jet, the 747!
Santa Maria arrived at Lisbon in April 1973 suffering engine troubles. The company decided that major repairs would have been impractical. With temporary repairs, she departed a month later on a cargo only voyage to Luanda and Lourenco Marques. She carried general cargo as well as a few dozen cars, many of which were stowed on deck. Once she had arrived at Lourenco Marques, she was given another duty to as she was to tow two small company freighters to a scrap yard in Mauritius.
Thereafter, she herself sailed empty, with a token crew to Taiwan, where she arrived in Kaohsiung on July 19, 1973, was scrapped.
Wikipedia and other sites.

[Arturo]

Santa Maria

Argentina, 1956

[aukepalmhof]

The Portuguese PTT gives by the stamp:

Liner SANTA MARIA 1953-1973 Companhia Colonial de Navegação, Lisbon
The history of the Santa Maria will forever be linked to its storming and subsequent hijacking on 22 January 1961. The assault was carried out by a group of Portuguese and Spanish opponents of the Franco and Salazar regimes. The Portuguese group was led by Henrique Galvão.
The attack resulted in the death of the ship’s third officer, João do Nascimento Costa, while several crew members were also injured. The third officer was posthumously honoured as a Knight of the Order of the Tower and Sword.

Portugal 2024 sg 0.65 sg?, Scott?