athenia sinking

David Jennings enjoys his pipe in an undated photo taken after WW2. Photo credit: Family photo

Meet the Character David Jennings: Adventures of A Young Man, Part 2

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

The longest continuous military conflict of World War 2 – The Battle of the Atlantic –began at 7:39 p.m., Sunday, Sept. 3, 1939, when a German torpedo loaded with 600 pounds of high explosives slammed into the port side of the British passenger ship Athenia.

At that precise moment onboard Athenia, David Jennings was preparing to leave his Third class cabin near the ship’s bow to attend the third seating for dinner. A University of Toronto student returning home for his senior year, Jennings was accompanied by two university friends, Tony Cassels and John Woods, with whom he had vacationed in the British Isles the previous month. (See blog post July 16, 2015: “David Jennings: Adventures of A Young Man.”) Read More

David Jennings, University of Toronto, 1940. Photo credit: Jennings family photo.

Meet the Character David Jennings: Adventures of A Young Man

by Thomas Sanger • Meet the Character, Without Warning Book • Leave a Comment

The late summer of 1939 had been a very enjoyable time for David Jennings. A senior at Canada’s University of Toronto, he had spent August traveling with two friends up and down the British Isles, visiting relatives, seeing the sights and sampling some of Britain’s finer eating establishments. Though conscious of the threat of war on the Continent, Jennings had no idea he was enjoying the last few idyllic days the world would know for the next six years.

Davidson Cumming Jennings was the youngest of four brothers born to a prominent Toronto family. His father, John, was a very successful lawyer for Guinness Brewing Co. in Canada. Young Jennings grew up in what might be termed “well-to-do” circumstances. Every evening in the family’s large home, the butler laid out dinner clothes for David and his three older brothers, who were expected to dress for dinner. David was a serious young man and a dedicated student (studying engineering at the university), who also possessed a very dry sense of humor. He enjoyed socializing and loved to sing a variety of Irish songs at parties and family gatherings. Read More

Meet the Character Rhoda Thomas: Resourceful Grandmother, Part 4

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

Rhoda Thomas and her fellow Athenia passengers had nearly given up hope of being rescued from their lifeboat when a bright light found them in the early morning darkness of Monday, Sept. 4, 1939. They had been drifting in the North Atlantic for hours following the attack on Athenia by a German submarine (see blog post June 1, 2015).

The light belonged to the luxury yacht Southern Cross, the second rescue ship to reach the scene of the attack. When the yacht came alongside Rhoda’s lifeboat, sailors threw lines to the passengers and pulled them up out of the boat one by one. Read More

The luxury yacht Southern Cross, owned by Swedish millionaire Axel Wenner-Gren, rescued 376 survivors, including my grandmother, Rhoda Thomas. Photo credit: www.latecruisenews.com

Meet the Character Rhoda Thomas: Resourceful Grandmother, Part 3

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

It took the Second World War only a few hours to find Rhoda Thomas and her fellow passengers aboard the British liner Athenia when their ship was torpedoed by a German submarine on Sept. 3, 1939 (see blog post May 15, 2015). The ship had been on its way to Canada and was 250 miles northwest of Ireland when the U-boat attacked as night had begun falling in the North Atlantic.

With the cries of women and children all around her, Rhoda stood on the deck, knowing the ship was doomed and thinking of her home and family in Rochester, NY, wondering if she would ever see them again.

“Yet I didn’t seem to be afraid and felt quite calm,” she later recalled, expressing an equanimity felt by many other passengers. After helping one distressed woman into a lifeboat, my 54-year-old grandmother managed to climb some 20 feet down a rope ladder and drop off the end into a lifeboat riding on the ocean’s six-foot swells. The night was cold, the boat leaked, and a drizzling rain added to the discomforts for the survivors. Rhoda was grateful she had worn a warm coat on deck before the torpedo attack. Read More

Rhoda Thomas saw many scenes like this one of school children being evacuated from large cities and factory towns in anticipation of the war. Photo Credit: http://www.bbc.co.uk

Meet the Character Rhoda Thomas: Resourceful Grandmother, Part 2

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

Like many other vacationers in Great Britain in September of 1939, Rhoda Thomas scrambled to make last-minute arrangements to return home ahead of a war with Germany that now seemed certain. She had arranged a ticket for the passenger ship Athenia, leaving Liverpool Sept. 2, and managed to catch an express train in southwestern England to take her to the port city the day before departure (see blog post May 1, 2015).

It was a grim journey. My grandmother later recalled the train trip as being “crowded with people returning unexpectedly from their vacations, all looking doubtful as to the future, but trying to be brave and calm.” Many were British citizens and they seemed to Rhoda to be “unresentful and reconciled to their fate, ready to do and give up all their country demanded.”

In anticipation of war, the British government had begun a voluntary evacuation of school children from cities and factory towns all over England that Friday, Sept. 1. Rhoda saw the first group of evacuated children as her train passed through Gloucester, a sight she said she would never Read More

Judith Evelyn with Vincent Price in a scene from her first Broadway hit, “Angel Street.” Photo credit: vincentpricenut2.com

Meet the Character Judith Evelyn: An Act of Survival, Part 4

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

Two weeks after being rescued in the North Atlantic from the overturned bow section of their wrecked lifeboat, Canadians Judith Evelyn and her former fiancé, Andrew Allan, boarded another ship in Glasgow, Scotland, hoping to return home. (See Judith Evelyn: An Act of Survival, Part 3, April 2, 2015.)

Evelyn, a stage actor, and Allan, a writer and radio producer, had been aboard the British passenger liner Athenia when a German submarine attacked the ship Sept. 3, 1939. This time they were sailing on an American passenger ship, the Orizaba.

The U.S. government chartered the ship to bring home American survivors of the Athenia tragedy. One reason the Canadians found space on the American ship may have been because Orizaba would sail without a naval escort, in spite of the recently declared war between England and Germany. The United States was a neutral country and the U.S. government believed an escort was unnecessary. Many American survivors protested when they learned there would be no escort and several refused Read More

This overturned lifeboat is smaller but similar in design to the hull on which Judith Evelyn and five others survived for several hours in rising seas. Photo credit: pixgood.com

Judith Evelyn: An Act of Survival, Part 3

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

In the early morning hours of Monday, Sept. 4, 1939, Judith Evelyn found herself adrift in the Atlantic Ocean on the overturned bow section of her wrecked lifeboat. The burgeoning stage actress had been returning to Canada when her ship, the British liner Athenia, was torpedoed by a German submarine only hours after England and Germany declared war (see blog post March 15, 2015, Judith Evelyn, Part 2).

Evelyn escaped the sinking ship along with her former fiancé, Andrew Allan, and his father, the Reverend William Allan. After several hours in the lifeboat, they were in the process of being rescued when the propeller of the would-be rescue ship inadvertently chopped their boat to pieces, tossing all aboard into the sea. Read More

Cover illustration for a 1958 book about the ATHENIA torpedoing depicts the tragedy that befell Judith Evelyn's lifeboat. Photo Credit: Ebay

Meet the Character Judith Evelyn: An Act of Survival, Part 2

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

In the early afternoon of Sunday, Sept. 3, 1939, Judith Evelyn experienced a grim premonition. A Canadian stage actress, Evelyn was returning home aboard the British passenger liner Athenia. She had just learned that England and Germany declared war, and when she saw Athenia’s crewmen provisioning the ship’s lifeboats, the thought came to her that, “We shan’t be out of this without being the lifeboats.”

Evelyn had made a last-minute decision to join her fiancé, Andrew Allan, and his father, William Allan, a Presbyterian minister, on the voyage home after she and Andrew had spent more than a year pursuing their careers in London (see blog post March 1, 2015, Judith Evelyn, Part 1). Read More

When Warning Was Required

by Thomas Sanger • Thomas C. Sanger, War History, Without Warning Book • Leave a Comment

A little more than eight hours after England and Germany declared war on Sept. 3, 1939, a German submarine attacked and sank the British passenger ship Athenia. In the days and weeks that followed the sinking, British politicians, diplomats and newspaper editorials made much of the fact that the German attack came “without warning.” (Without Warning is the title of my forthcoming historical novel that tells the story of this little-known event.)

The phrase seems oddly quaint today, especially considering the terrible carnage suffered by civilian populations during World War 2 and many wars since, much of it delivered with little or no warning from the attackers. In 1939, however, the requirement for warships to follow certain international “prize rules” was widely understood to be a standard of civilized warfare.

For much of World War 1 Germany ignored the prize rules and waged unrestricted warfare against all enemy ships, including unarmed merchant vessels. Germany’s submarines, known as U-boats, were particularly effective instruments of unrestricted warfare because, unlike other ships, they could attack from underwater without revealing their presence. Read More

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