SS Athenia

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

Canadian Actress Judith Evelyn Photo credit: famousdude.com

Judith Evelyn: An Act of Survival, Part 1

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

Judith Evelyn, a 30-year-old Canadian stage actress, boarded the British passenger liner Athenia with a sense of foreboding the morning of Sept. 1, 1939, in Glasgow, Scotland. That same morning the German army invaded Poland, and England launched a nationwide emergency evacuation of schoolchildren from cities likely to become targets if Britain went to war.

The circumstances appeared bleak for this bright and ambitious actress from Canada’s Prairie Provinces who had pushed her career from humble beginnings to unexpected heights.

Judith Evelyn was born Evelyn Morris in Seneca, South Dakota, but grew up in Winnipeg, Canada, with a step-father who was a successful stage actor. Young Evelyn fell in love with acting, working with her step-father in the Chautauqua shows of rural Manitoba and Saskatchewan. When she changed her name from Evelyn Morris to Judith Evelyn there was no doubt she intended to make acting a career. 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: 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

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

photo of Barnet Copland

Meet the Character: Barnet Mackenzie Copland, A Modest Hero, Part 2

by Thomas Sanger • Thomas C. Sanger • Leave a Comment

For nearly 15 hours after she was torpedoed by a German U-boat, the British passenger liner Athenia struggled to stay afloat. They proved to be the most fateful hours in the life of Barnet Mackenzie Copland, the ship’s chief officer (See blog “A Modest Hero, Part 1.” Sept. 15, 2014.)

Copland made a quick assessment of the damage to the ship immediately after the torpedo strike and believed Athenia would stay afloat long enough to launch all the lifeboats. Once all the boats had gone, Copland descended into the ship’s dark, dangerous passageways to make a more thorough evaluation of Athenia’s condition and concluded that she could not be saved. Two hours after all the passengers had left, Copland was among the last of the crew to abandon ship. He took over a dangerously overloaded lifeboat and saw it safely through the night, in spite of rising seas, to be rescued at dawn by a Royal Navy destroyer. 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