On the 9th June, 1940, the steamship “Umbria” flying the Italian flag, was blocked by the English outside Port Sudan. The Commander, Lorenzo Muiesan, ordered the first officer Rodolfo Zarli, to flood the ship’s holds. As a result the steamship “Umbria” sank in the waters of the Red Sea. Italy entered the war. Thirty years later, at the end of World War II, the Sudanese government asked the Italian Navy to remove the wreck from the seabed because it was thought to be carrying a cargo of dangerous explosives. However, officially the wreck had already been removed by the English.
By way of the letters that the first officer, Rodolfo Zarli, sent to his family and the testimony of his wife and his son, Fulvio, we go back over the story of the steamship “Umbria”, believed still on the seabed at Port Sudan, and its mysterious fate.