Nikolaos Pappas, the legendary navy commander of the "Velos" destroyer that led a mutiny against the military junta, passed away on April 5, at the age of 83.

In May 1973, during a NATO exercise in Italy, Pappas refused to sail the boat back to Greece and anchored off Fiumicino, Rome, where he held a press conference denouncing the military regime.

The Velos mutiny was one of the first signs of resistance by the military against the dictatorship and struck a major blow to the dictatorship.

Pappas was expelled from the Navy and stripped of his Greek citizenship by the junta for his action; he remained in Italy as a political refugee, along with his crew members, to return to Greece and the Navy only after the regime's collapse in 1974.

He later reached the rank of Vice Admiral, and served as Chief of the Navy General Staff from 1982 to 1986. "Velos" is now a floating museum themed on the anti-junta struggle, anchored at Faliro Bay.