The Port Authority of Santa Cruz de Tenerife has begun work this Thursday to remove the propeller of the cruise ship “Canarias”which since 1980 has been located on the North Pier of Avenida de Anaga, according to reports Cope Tenerife. Some historians and historical memory associations had cataloged it as a “Franco vestige”, and it was thus listed in the report of the Cultural Heritage Service of the Government of the Canary Islands issued just a week ago, in which its withdrawal was urged.
The construction of the cruiser “Canarias” was ordered in 1928, during the dictatorship of General Miguel Primo de Rivera, but it did not enter service until September 1936. During the Civil War (1936-1939) it was used by the Francoist side, as its twin, the cruise ship “Baleares”. He participated in coastal bombardments, naval blockade operations and seized other ships with supplies for the Republic, but his most outstanding action was in the massacre of the Malaga-Almería highway, where thousands of civilians lost their lives to gunshots in full flight, a episode known as the ‘Desbandá’.
The propeller was delivered by the Canary Islands Maritime Zone to the city and is one of the four that powered this war cruiser for 44 years, considered by the Spanish Navy to be the most famous of the 20th century.
