SS Aquila ( 1940 ) SS " Aquila was a cargo ship built in 1940 as SS " Duke of Sparta by William Gray & Company at West Hartlepool on Tees - side , UK . She was launched in July 1940 and completed in October of that year . At the same time W . Gray also built her sister ship , . " Duke of Athens " and " Duke of Sparta " were built for S . Livanos ' Trent Maritime Co Ltd . In 1951 " Duke of Sparta " was sold to Grimaldi Brothers of Naples , Italy . Stowaways from Nigeria . On 24th or 25 December 1947 " Duke of Sparta " sailed from Apapa on a voyage " via " Las Palmas to Kingston upon Hull , England . Before she sailed , five stowaways were found aboard and were handed over to the police . After two days ' sailing , when she was off the Gold Coast , two more stowaways were found . " Duke of Sparta " summoned the assistance of fishing canoes in the vicinity , and the stowaways were transferred to the canoes to be put ashore . Some days later " Duke of Sparta " called at Las Palmas in the Canary Islands . Some days after she left Las Palmas a further five stowaways were found aboard , and these were kept aboard until " Duke of Sparta " docked at Hull . Early in 1948 a controversy was raised in Nigeria over the treatment of some of " Duke of Sparta " s stowaways . A Mr Eusebius Tunde George of Lagos , Nigeria alleged that six stowaways were found aboard off Gold Coast , that the crew threw them all into the sea , and that only he and one other stowaway survived . Mr George ' s allegations were widely published in Nigerian newspapers on 13 February 1948 and subsequently repeated in the newspapers of other British colonies . On 28 April 1948 the British Communist MP Willie Gallacher raised Mr George ' s allegations in the UK House of Commons . The Labour Government ' s Under - Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs , Christopher Mayhew MP , replied refuting the allegations in detail . Mayhew ' s Labour colleague Will Nally MP added that on 17 February the " Nigerian Review " had published an article headlined " " Fantastic story about stowaways is proved false " " , that also had refuted Mr George ' s claims . Bombed and sunk by the CIA . At the end of April 1958 " Aquila " was in ballast and anchored off Ambon City in Indonesia when a Douglas B - 26 Invader bomber aircraft , operated by the CIA and painted black and with no markings , bombed and damaged her . The date of the bombing is 28 April according to one source but 1 or 2 May according to another . " Aquila " stayed afloat for a month but sank on 27 May 1958 . The attack was part of a CIA covert operation to support right - wing Permesta rebels in North Sulawesi to destabilise President Sukarno ' s government of Indonesia . The CIA pilots had orders to target foreign merchant ships in order to drive foreign trade away from Indonesian waters , thereby weakening the Indonesian economy in the belief that this would undermine Sukarno . The pilot was the CIA and former USAF pilot Allen Pope , who in the same sortie also bombed the merchant ships and . On 18 May the Indonesian Navy and Air Force shot down Pope ' s aircraft and captured him , after which the USA rapidly aborted the CIA mission and radically revised its policy towards Indonesia . Wreck . For many years the position of " Aquila " s wreck was unknown . One source published in 1999 asserted that Pope had sunk her off the port of Donggala , near Palu in Central Sulawesi . This now seems to be incorrect . For some years recreational scuba divers knew the wreck of a cargo ship in Ambon Bay without knowing her name . In October 2009 divers penetrated the mystery wreck ' s engine room and recovered a maker ' s plate from one of her water heaters . This gave the maker as a company in West Hartlepool where SS " Aquila " had been built , which at last gave a clue to the wreck ' s identity . " Aquila " is on a slope on the seabed off Ambon , with her stern about below the surface and her bow about below the surface .