Without Warning

The Russell Park Story, Part 12

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

The American passenger ship SS Orizaba

September 20, 1939

A few bright stars shone in the twilight sky as the American passenger ship Orizaba sat anchored in Galway Bay on Ireland’s west coast. Eleven-year-old Russell Park, who had boarded the ship in Glasgow, Scotland, with the first group of Athenia survivors, stood at the ship’s railing to watch the final group of passengers come aboard. The crowded little ship would set sail that night, bound for New York Harbor.

While in Glasgow, Russell learned his mother was rescued by an American freighter and had returned home to Philadelphia, but there was still no word about his father. In the absence of Russell’s parents, he was being looked after by Charles Van Newkirk, who had been in the same cabin with Russell’s father, Alexander, when they were aboard Athenia. Although Alexander Park wasn’t listed among the Athenia survivors landed in Galway, the boy couldn’t keep himself from looking for his father’s slight figure among the boarding passengers.

“Just a few more minutes and we should go below for our dinner seating,” Van Newkirk told Russell after glancing at his pocket watch.

“Okay,” Russell responded, his focus remaining on the people coming aboard. He was not alone. Several passengers stood by, scanning the new arrivals for a loved one or close friend from whom they had been separated during the rescue operations. Every so often a new shout of recognition would announce an impromptu reunion as a husband and wife or mother and child found each other.

Russell’s body stiffened when he recognized a young priest stepping on board.

“Father O’Connor!” the boy shouted and began waving. “Father O’Connor, up here!”

The priest followed the sound of his name and looked up to find Russell at the railing above the main deck. His face broke into as wide smile as he waved back at the boy.

“Stay there,” he called to Russell. “We’re coming up.” Russell was thrilled to see Father Joseph O’Connor, who had been with him and his father briefly when Athenia dropped anchor in Liverpool. His parents and the priest had first met on the ship that had carried them to Ireland from America in early August.

Moments later, Father O’Connor, who was traveling with his father, Charles, arrived on the upper deck and Russell rushed to give the priest an enthusiastic hug, which he returned in kind.

“How are you, son?” O’Connor asked. “We were so worried about you and your parents.”

“I’m good, Father. I was rescued by a destroyer and they took us back to Scotland.”

“And what about your parents? Are they on board, too?”

“No, they’re not here.” Russell tried to hide the disappointment in his voice. “My mother was rescued by another ship that went to Canada last week.”

“That’s wonderful. And your father?”

“Um, I don’t know where he is. Maybe he’s already home.”

“Yes, of course. We’ll pray that wherever he is, your father is safe and well.”

The young priest turned to introduce himself and his father to Van Newkirk, who explained to the priest that he had volunteered to look after Russell for the duration of their trip to New York. Russell watched the two men talk without really listening to their conversation. He felt reassured by the priest’s familiar presence. Maybe his life, which had been knocked so askew ever since the torpedo struck Athenia, was beginning to come together again.

“Russell?” Father O’Connor turned toward the boy. “If it’s alright with you, Mr. Van Newkirk has agreed that when we arrive in New York, dad and I will accompany you off the ship. Since we’re all going back to Philadelphia and your friend is going to Boston, we can travel together if your mom and dad aren’t able to meet the ship. What do you think?”

“That would be great,” Russell said. “Are you sure that’s okay, Mr. Van Newkirk?”

“It’s fine with me.”

Though the daylight was fading quickly, the world seemed brighter to Russell. He turned his gaze back to the arriving passengers and thought how wonderful it would be to see his father step aboard Orizaba.

In our final, blog: Reunion awaits in New York Harbor.

For all the parts of the Russell Park Story:  www.thomascsanger.com

Rhoda Thomas Photo credit: Family photo

The Writing Life: Origins of a Book, Part 1

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

As some of you may know, Without Warning is in its final revision stages as I attempt to make my manuscript read more like a novel. With luck I’ll finish this part of the process by the end of September, when my search for an agent and/or publisher will resume.

At this juncture, I thought it might be interesting to tell how I came to this project and what I hope to accomplish with my book. Without Warning tells the story of the British passenger ship Athenia, which was torpedoed by a German submarine Sept. 3, 1939, only hours after the two countries declared war.

Despite Athenia’s place in history as the first British ship sunk in World War 2, few in the British Isles and even fewer in America have ever heard her name. My attachment to this tragedy is personal. My grandmother, Rhoda Thomas, was a passenger on Athenia’s last voyage. She survived the sinking and returned home to Rochester, NY, as a minor celebrity. She gave her eye-witness account of these events to several newspapers and completed an affidavit for the U.S. State Department, which asked all 281 surviving American passengers to describe what they saw.

At some point, Rhoda sat down and wrote a vivid 14-page memoir for family members about her experiences before, during and after the torpedo attack. Reading her account many years after her death was like hearing her voice again. Her honesty and the immediacy of her descriptions inspired me to try to bring this long-ago incident back to life. It was late fall of 2010, and I had no idea this effort would take me six years, more than 100,000 words, and several thousand miles of travel to complete.

That journey begins in my next blog. 

Fritz-Julius Lemp, commander of U-30. Photo credit: alchetron.com

Meet the Character Fritz-Julius Lemp, Part 1

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

Of all the characters I researched for my forthcoming historical novel, Without Warning, Fritz-Julius Lemp was the most enigmatic. Lemp commanded the German submarine that sank the first ship in the Battle of the Atlantic during World War 2. His attack on the British passenger liner Athenia is the central event of the novel, which is told through the experiences of eight characters, including Lemp.

Who was he, and why did he loose the fatal torpedo when he had strict orders not to attack unescorted passenger ships?

Trying to answer these questions proved largely futile, although I gained tantalizing glimpses through the accounts of a few sailors who served with him and from histories of the German U-boat war.

Lemp was born Feb. 19, 1913, in Tsingtau, China. The port city was the administrative center of a 200-square-mile concession Germany leased from China in 1898. His father was a junior ranking Army officer, who returned to Germany with his wife and young son before Tsingtau fell to the Japanese at the start of World War 1 in 1914.

There is little record of Lemp during his formative years in Germany, although he would have grown up during a time of great social unrest and economic hyper-inflation. At age 18 he carried on what may have been a family military tradition by joining the German Navy as an officer trainee.

In 1935 he became a full-fledged naval officer (Leutnant zur See), and a year later volunteered for U-boat service. At the time, the Unterseeboot Fleet was made up entirely of volunteers, a condition established by the fleet commander, Kommodore Karl Dӧnitz, in an effort to create an elite force. Lemp attended submarine school and served a tour of duty as a watch officer aboard U-28, before undergoing further schooling to qualify for command of a U-boat.

At the relatively young age of 25, Lemp, now holding the rank of Oberleutnant, was given command of U-30 in November, 1938. Some months later, he experienced a defining moment in his young career when U-30 collided with another submarine during submerged maneuvers. His quick thinking and cool execution of emergency procedures were credited with saving his boat and the 42 men aboard. It is not clear exactly what happened or who, if anyone, might have been a fault. But from that day forward, Lemp enjoyed the complete confidence of the officers and men sailing with him.

When the German Army invaded Poland on Sept. 1, 1939, nearly all of Germany’s ocean-going U-boats were poised for attack in designated waiting zones beyond the shipping lanes into and out of Great Britain. Three times the previous year the U-boat fleet had been similarly deployed in anticipation of possible hostilities with England, but each time conflict was avoided and the fleet had been recalled.

In the early afternoon of Sept. 3, word was flashed to all German armed forces that England and Germany were at war once again, 21 years after the end of World War 1. It would prove to be the first day of the brief, but momentous combat career of Fritz-Julius Lemp.

His story continues in our next blog.

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

The torpedo firing lever on the bridge of U-995 is located on the right hand side of the boat’s aiming column. Special binoculars were attached to the column for U-boat surface attacks. A similar lever is located in the combat center just below the bridge for submerged attacks. Photo Credit: Torpedo Vorhaltrechner Project

The Writing Life: How to Fire a Torpedo

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

When I revised my historical novel, Without Warning, I decided to start the book with the moment when a German submarine launches a torpedo at the British passenger liner Athenia. It is a short, critical scene on which the story will pivot and cause a life-and-death crisis for all the principal characters. I wanted to highlight this moment by showing the simple physical action taken by the submarine’s commander that creates the subsequent chaos.

There was, however, one big problem. I had no idea what the World War 2 commander of a U-boat did to fire a torpedo. Did he pull a lanyard? Push a button? Flip a switch? Did he even fire the torpedo, or did his command to “fire” tell another crew member to take some action that launched the torpedo? If I didn’t get this detail right, U-boat aficionados would raise concerns about the novel’s overall veracity. Read More