ww2 history

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

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

Axel Wenner-Gren, 1936

Was Athenia Rescuer Axel Wenner-Gren a Nazi Spy? Part 2

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

In the mid-1930s, the 58-year-old Swedish multimillionaire Axel Wenner-Gren was one of the wealthiest men in the world and oversaw a global business empire that included Electrolux vacuum cleaners, a Swedish arms company, and a Swedish aircraft manufacturer among others (see Blog, “Was Athenia’s Rescuer a Nazi Spy?” Aug. 1, 2014).

Well acquainted with the world’s elite businessmen, as well as politicians, celebrities, and royalty, he traveled in very exclusive circles. U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt and his wife Eleanor hosted Wenner-Gren and his American-born wife, Marguerite, for a weekend at the White House in 1936. A few months later, Wenner-Gren met Hermann Gӧring, the number two man in the Nazi government. Wenner-Gren, who was educated in Germany, enjoyed business connections there that stretched back three decades, so it was not surprising that he might meet with Gӧring, particularly as both men had a keen interest in aviation. Nevertheless, within a few years Wenner-Gren’s German association would be seen by some in a more troubling light. Read More

photo of Axel Wenner-Gren

Axel Wenner-Gren: Was Athenia’s Rescuer a Nazi Spy?

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

Of all the persons associated with the sinking of the British passenger ship Athenia and the rescue of her passengers, no one is more enigmatic than the Swedish multimillionaire Axel Wenner-Gren. His yacht, Southern Cross, was the second ship to join the rescue operations the morning of September 4, 1939, and he saved 376 passengers.

When he answered Athenia’s distress call following the German U-boat attack, Wenner-Gren was one of the wealthiest men in the world, worth more than $100 million. He ran a business empire that spanned the globe. But he also was a very private man who preferred to shun the spotlight. As a result, rumors swirled about his relationship with Nazi Field Marshall Herman Gӧring, his business interests in Germany, and his motives for attempting to broker a peace accord between Germany and Great Britain.

Was Wenner-Gren a Nazi spy or simply a man out of his depth in the world of diplomacy? Read More