On September 3, 1939, the first day of World War II, the British passenger ship Athenia was steaming 250 miles northwest of Ireland, bound for Canada. Many of the 1,100 passengers on board believed they had outrun the danger of a submarine attack, but they were wrong. As dusk fell that Sunday night, a young German U-boat commander fired the first torpedo of the war at what he thought was an armed merchant ship. It was a colossal mistake.Without Warning tells the story of eight people – six passengers, Athenia’s chief officer and the U-boat commander – whose lives were dramatically upended by the mistaken torpedo attack. The book begins in June, 1939, with the clouds of war ominously gathering over Europe, and quickly proceeds to the last week of August, when all eight characters were caught in the vortex of events leading to the war. We follow conditions aboard the submarine, U-30, secretly waiting for word to attack British shipping, and also aboard Athenia as she picked up passengers in Glasgow, Belfast, and Liverpool before sailing into the Atlantic Ocean. Athenia’s passengers made the best of crowded shipboard conditions; some were happy to be returning home as war broke out in Europe, some were escaping Nazi occupation, and some hoped to start or re-kindle a romance on the high seas. As night fell on Sunday, September 3, passengers were sleeping, dining, or watching the last glow of sunset when the torpedo slammed into the ocean liner.

Many passengers were separated from loved ones as they boarded the lifeboats, a result of evacuating women and children first. In the lifeboats, a misting rain and persistent leaks made for challenging conditions, especially for those wearing only night clothes or evening dresses in the cold, biting wind. When the first rescue ships arrived shortly past midnight, passengers faced more dangers climbing out of their lifeboats in rising seas. One boat was chopped up by the propeller of a rescue ship, leaving a few survivors clinging to wreckage in the cold waters until dawn. Another boat capsized as it neared a luxury yacht, causing a desperate mother to swim through the oily seas searching for her son.  On board U-30, the young commander faced his own dire emergency before finally discovering his tragic mistake.When rescue operations were completed the next morning, Athenia’s chief officer discovered that a woman in the liner’s sickbay had been left on board, and he led a rescue expedition to save her shortly before the ship sank. Survivors were taken to three different ports by the rescue ships and spent many more anxious days before learning the fate of their loved ones. The book ends twenty months later, when fate brings the chief officer and the young U-boat commander together again in a battle only one of them will survive.

Bibliography

For anyone interested in this subject, below is a list of the books I read, the libraries and archives I visited, and the most helpful Websites I reviewed to research Without Warning.  I am indebted to the skills and enthusiasm of archivists and librarians who helped me and my wife, Kay, track down the details of Athenia’s story.

Allan, Andrew; Andrew Allan: A Self-Portrait; MacMillan of Canada; Toronto; 1974

Allan, Rev. William; Memories of Blinkbonnie; Thomas Nelson & Sons; Toronto; 1939

Blair, Clay; Hitler’s U-Boat War, Vol. I; Random House, Inc.; New York; 1996

Brennecke, Jochen; The Hunters and the Hunted; Corgi, London; 1960

Carroll, Prof. Francis M.; Athenia Torpedoed: The U-Boat Attack That Ignited the Battle of the
Atlantic; Naval Institute Press; Annapolis, MD; 2012

Cass-Beggs, Barbara; Roots and Wings: A Memoir of My Life with David; Cass-Beggs Productions; Hull, Quebec; 1992

Caulfield, Max; Tomorrow Never Came: The Story of the S.S. Athenia; W.W. Norton & Co.; New York; 1959 (First published in England under the title Night of Terror in 1958)

Charman, Terry; Outbreak 1939: The World Goes to War; Virgin Books; London; 2009

Evans, Montgomery; A Ship Was Torpedoed; Montgomery Evans, USA; 1941

Gainard, Joseph; Yankee Skipper: The Life Story of Joseph Gainard, Captain of the City of Flint; Frederick A. Stokes Co.; New York; 1940

Hibbert, Joyce; Fragments of War: Stories from Survivors of World War II; Dundurn Press; Toronto; 1985

Kaplan, Philip & Currie, Jack; Wolfpack: U-Boats at War 1939-1945; Naval Institute Press; Annapolis, MD; 1997

Krzysztalowicz, Marek; Type VII: Germany’s Most Successful U-Boats; Seaforth Publishing; Barnsley, S. Yorkshire, U.K.; 2012

Kurowsk, Franz;  Jäger der sieben Meere. Die berühmtesten U-Boot-Kommandanten des II. Weltkriegs; Motorbuch Verlag, Stuttgart; 1998 (2. Auflage)

Mulligan, Timothy P.; Neither Sharks Nor Wolves: The Men of Nazi Germany’s U-Boat Arm, 1939-1945; Naval Institute Press; Annapolis, MD; 1999.

Rademacher, Cay, Drie Tage Im September; Die Ietzte Fahrt der Athenia 1939; Mareverlag, Hamburg; 2009

Rӧssler, Eberhard; The U-boat: The Evolution and Technical History of German Submarines; Arms and Armour Press, London; 1981

Stern, Robert C.; Type VII U-boats; Brockhampton Press, London; 1991

Werner, Herbert A.; Iron Coffins: A personal account of the German U-boat battles of World War II; Holt, Rinehart and Winston; New York; 1969

Wright, David Habersham; Wolves Without Teeth; The German Torpedo Crisis in World War Two; Master of Arts Thesis, Georgia Southern University, Statesboro, Georgia; 2010

Archives & Libraries:

British Library, London & Colindale, UK

British Maritime Museum Archive, Greenwich, UK

British National Archives, Kew, UK

Deutsches Marine Museum, Wilhelmshaven, Germany

Deutsches U-Boat Museum, Cruxhaven-Altenbruch, Germany

Imperial War Museum Archive, London, UK

Metropolitan London Archives, London, UK

Mitchell Library, Glasgow, Scotland, UK

National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK

New York City Public Library, New York, New York, USA

Riverside Museum, Glasgow, Scotland, UK

Royal Navy Submarine Museum Archive, Gosport, UK

Scottish Screen Archive, Glasgow, Scotland, UK

Technisches Museum U-995 at the Laboe Naval Memorial, Laboe, Germany

U.S. National Archives, College Park, MD, USA

Websites:

Ahoy – Mac’s weblog (click on “The Athenia Pages”)

Benjidog.co.uk (click on “Athenia 1923”)

MaritimeQuest (click on “Daily Event” ›“Daily Event Archive” ›“2008” ›“September” ›“3”)

Mikekemble  (click on “WW/2 Sea” ›“SS Athenia”)

Sharkhunters (click on “U-Boat History” ›“view history of any U-Boat,” scroll down to click on “U-30,” scroll down to find and click on individual stories)

U-boataces.com (for general information about German U-boats in World War II)