SS Athenia

The nested configuration of lifeboats aboard Athenia visible on the builder’s model of the ship at the Riverside Museum, Glasgow.

At Sea in a Lifeboat

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

Few passengers on a cruise ship nowadays ever give much thought to escaping the ship in lifeboats if an emergency occurs. This also was the case 75 years ago when passengers aboard the British liner Athenia suddenly had to abandon their ship at dusk after it was torpedoed by a German submarine (the central event in my forthcoming historical novel, Without Warning).

Then, as now, ships were required to carry lifeboats and life rafts that exceeded the total number of passengers and crew aboard. Modern lifeboats, however, have several advantages over those carried by Athenia.

The newer lifeboats can be launched by emergency power systems or by gravity if the power fails, and they can do so even if the ship is listing to one side by as much as 20 degrees. Such boats are enclosed to protect passengers against the elements, are self-powered, and have communications equipment or radio beacons that transmit signals to help rescue vessels locate them. Read More

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 Guest Blog by Rosemary Cass-Beggs Burstall

by Thomas Sanger • Guest Blog Post, Interviews, SS Athenia • Leave a Comment

Note: Rosemary Cass-Beggs was three years old when she boarded the British passenger liner Athenia Sept. 2, 1939, with her parents, Barbara and David Cass-Beggs. When their ship was torpedoed by a German U-boat (the central event in my forthcoming historical novel, Without Warning), Rosemary’s parents put her on one of the first lifeboats to leave the ship, even though there was no room for them in the boat. They expected Athenia to sink at any moment and wanted to make sure their daughter survived. Following are Rosemary’s memories of these events.

I am kneeling on a bench near the pointed end of the boat crying, “Mum-mee!” at intervals. What worried me most was that I was wearing my pajama top and nothing else. I don’t remember being cold or wet, simply embarrassed. Behind me, sitting round the edges of the boat were a lot of other people, all very silent. 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.
Read More

Photo of Joseph P. Kennedy

Cables Show Confused Picture of Athenia Torpedoing

by Thomas Sanger • SS Athenia, War History • Leave a Comment

Early Monday morning, Sept. 4, 1939, the American ambassador to Great Britain, Joseph P. Kennedy, was awakened by an assistant with the news that a British passenger ship carrying several hundred Americans from England to Canada had been torpedoed and was sinking in the North Atlantic. This tragedy is the central event of my forthcoming historical novel Without Warning.

Joe Kennedy was personally opposed to the war that England had declared against Germany less than 24 hours earlier. He knew President Franklin D. Roosevelt was sympathetic to the British cause, although Roosevelt had declared America would remain neutral in the European conflict. Read More

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

RMS Lusitania

Parallels Between the Sinking of the Lusitania and the Athenia

by Thomas Sanger • SS Athenia, War History • Leave a Comment

Seventy-five years ago this week, September 3, 1939, a German U-boat torpedoed and sank the British passenger liner Athenia in the opening hours of World War II. This tragic event is the common thread that links the nine people who are the subject of my prospective historical novel, Without Warning. Despite its historic significance as the first British ship sunk in the war, Athenia’s anniversary is likely to pass with little fanfare. Why is it that people generally are more familiar with the sinking of the Lusitania, a passenger ship sunk during World War I, than with Athenia? That is the question I want to explore with this blog. Read More