Meet the Character

Meet the Character: Ruth Etherington, An Unlikely Hero, Part 2

by Thomas Sanger • Meet the Character, SS Athenia, Thomas C. Sanger, War History • Leave a Comment

Ruth Etherington returned with her husband, Harold, and their ten-year-old son, Geoff, to their home in Milwaukee following their rescue from the torpedoed Athenia. Ruth would never again experience the intensity of the emotions she felt saving her son’s life (see Ruth Etherington, An Unlikely Hero, Jan. 2, 2015). But in the years that followed, she would support and encourage the remarkable achievements of the two men in her life.

When the United States entered World War 2 in 1941, Ruth used her university studies in mathematics and chemistry to take a job as a hydraulic engineer for the Allis-Chalmers Co. On the day Japan surrendered to end the war she resigned her position and returned to the varied hobbies and interest she loved. An avid photographer and artist, she also supported many civic causes in the communities where the Etheringtons lived. Read More

Meet the Character: Ruth Etherington, An Unlikely Hero

by Thomas Sanger • Meet the Character, SS Athenia • Leave a Comment

Ruth Etherington and her family checked into their Liverpool hotel the evening of Sept. 1, 1939, concluding a five-week holiday with relatives in Great Britain and preparing to depart the next day for Canada aboard Athenia. Germany’s invasion of Poland that same morning brought a sense of urgency to their voyage home as war between the British and Germans now seemed imminent. Ruth had no way of knowing she was about to become one of the first targets of that war and one of its first heroes (as featured in my forthcoming historical novel, Without Warning).

Born 35 years earlier to a Scottish mother and Welsh father, Elesa Ruth Ashton grew up in England’s West Midlands. At the University of Wales, she studied mathematics, chemistry, and botany on the way to earning a degree in education. A petite and energetic beauty, Ruth also enjoyed playing romantic and comedy roles in student theater productions. She graduated “magna cum laude” in 1925 and took a teaching job in northern Wales before meeting Harold Etherington, a brilliant mechanical engineer who was nearly four years her senior. They married in early 1928 and their son, Geoffrey, was born that December. Read More

Meet the Character: Barbara Cass-Beggs, A Life in Music, Part 1

by Thomas Sanger • Meet the Character, SS Athenia • Leave a Comment

Barbara Cass-Beggs was 34 years old when she boarded Athenia in Liverpool on the afternoon of Sept. 2, 1939, with her husband, David, and 3-year-old daughter, Rosemary. In a little more than 24 hours, Barbara and David would become separated from their daughter when a German U-boat torpedoed their ship, the central event in my forthcoming historical novel, Without Warning.
Nothing in Barbara’s life prior to boarding Athenia could have prepared her for the hardships she was about to endure or the terrible anxiety of separation from her daughter.

Barbara Cass was born in Nottingham, England, the younger of two daughters. Her father, Bingley Cass, a Church of England minister, moved the family frequently as he sought positions of greater responsibility in churches with ever larger congregations. Read More

Meet the Character: Barbara Cass-Beggs An Accomplished Life, Part 3

by Thomas Sanger • Meet the Character, SS Athenia, Thomas C. Sanger, War History • Leave a Comment

The journey had begun innocently enough. Barbara Cass-Beggs and her husband, David, decided to go to Canada for a year while he served as a guest lecturer in electrical engineering at the University of Toronto. They sailed with their 3-year-old daughter, Rosemary, aboard Athenia from Liverpool, England, Sept. 2, 1939. The next day, Great Britain and Germany declared war, and less than ten hours later, a German U-boat torpedoed Athenia (see Barbara Cass-Beggs, An Accomplished Life, Part 2, Nov. 15, 2014).

Separated from Rosemary while abandoning ship, Barbara and David spent an anxious three weeks before reuniting with their daughter in Toronto. They gave no thought of returning to England during the remainder of the war, and found Canada’s more egalitarian society so much to their liking that they remained for another six years after the war. During this period both their careers began to blossom. Read More

Passenger list for Athenia’s voyage from Glasgow to Canada, Sept. 2, 1938

Meet the Character: Barbara Cass-Beggs, An Accomplished Life, Part 2

by Thomas Sanger • Meet the Character, SS Athenia, Thomas C. Sanger, War History • Leave a Comment

A little more than 24 hours after coming aboard the British passenger liner Athenia, Barbara Cass-Beggs came face to face with the war she hoped she would never see. Barbara, her husband David, and their 3-year-old daughter, Rosemary, were on their way to Canada where David would lecture in electrical engineering for a year at the University of Toronto. (See blog “Barbara Cass-Beggs, An Accomplished Life, Part 1,” Nov. 1, 2014.)

It had already been a difficult voyage, with both Barbara and David feeling the effects of sea-sickness. They had gone to bed early the evening of Sept. 3, 1939, when a torpedo from a German U-boat slammed into Athenia’s port side. The explosion crippled the engines and shut down the electrical system, plunging the ship into darkness.
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Liverpool’s Mersey River

Meet the Character: Barbara Cass-Beggs An Accomplished Life, Part 1

by Thomas Sanger • Meet the Character, Thomas C. Sanger, War History • Leave a Comment

Barbara Cass-Beggs expected to spend a year in Canada with her husband, David, and their 3-year-old daughter, Rosemary, when they boarded Athenia in Liverpool on the afternoon of Sept. 2, 1939. David had accepted a position for the coming academic year to lecture on electrical engineering at the University of Toronto, and Barbara saw it as an opportunity to test the waters of Canada’s egalitarian society. They planned to return home to Oxford, England, when the year ended, but World War 2 would change all that.

The threat of war seemed a long way off when Barbara and David initially planned to go to Canada. As tensions on the Continent mounted in the summer of 1939, they had second thoughts, but resolved to go anyway, in part to escape the rigid class distinctions of Great Britain.
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Barnet Mackenzie Copland

Meet the Character: Barnet Mackenzie Copland, A Modest Hero, Part 1

by Thomas Sanger • Meet the Character, SS Athenia, Without Warning Book • 1 Comment

One of the most widely recognized heroes of the attack on Athenia was the ship’s Chief Officer Barnet Copland, a 32-year-old merchant mariner who had spent more than half his life at sea. Copland was born in 1907 and grew up in Stepps, a northeastern suburb of Glasgow, Scotland. His father, Peter, was a railway clerk and his mother, Elizabeth Mackenzie Copland, was a housewife already raising two older children. While Peter eventually became a station agent for the London, Midland and Scottish (LMS) Railway service, young “Barney” was more interested in the sea. Glasgow, a major port and shipbuilding center, must have been a powerful attraction. After leaving Glasgow’s Royal Technical College at age 15, he went to sea as an apprentice with the Donaldson Line, one of the city’s oldest merchant shipping companies. Copland proved to be capable and a quick study. By the age of 19 he had secured his Masters and Mates certificate as a second mate.

Fond of the outdoors, he often enjoyed walks in the rugged Scottish Highlands, which helped him maintain an athletic build on his 5’9” frame. By all accounts, Copland was Read More