SS Athenia

1939

Nine hours after war, the first merchant sunk Location: Atlantic Ocean, west of Rockall · Coordinates: 56.44°N 14.05°W · Casualties: 117 · Survivors: 1,301 · Depth: 250 m · Cause: submarine torpedo — Torpedoed by German submarine U-30 (Fritz-Julius Lemp, commanding) at 19:40 on 3 September 1939, nine hours after Chamberlain's declaration of war. Lemp mistook her for an armed merchant cruiser. A single torpedo struck her port side. · Fate: located · Type: passenger liner · Donaldson Atlantic Line · Tonnage: 13,465 tons · Crew: 315 · Flag: United Kingdom · Launched: 1922 Donaldson Atlantic Line passenger liner, Glasgow to Montreal, crowded with refugees and tourists caught in the war's opening days. Torpedoed by U-30 west of Rockall at 19:40 on 3 September 1939, nine hours after Chamberlain's declaration of war. The first British merchant vessel sunk in the Second World War. 117 dead of 1,418 aboard, including 28 Americans; Germany denied responsibility until 1946. The Vessel The SS Athenia was a British passenger liner of the Donaldson Atlantic Line, built at the Fairfield Shipbuilding yard in Govan, Scotland, and launched on 28 January 1922. She was 160 metres long, 13,465 gross tons, and designed for the Glasgow-Montreal immigrant and general-passenger trade. She carried cabin-class and tourist-class accommodations for 1,550 passengers, with a service speed of 15 knots. She was the second Donaldson ship of her name, the first Athenia (launched 1904) having been torpedoed and sunk by U-53 on 16 August 1917, eight nautical miles south of Inishtrahull. Her interwar service was unremarkable: routine Atlantic passages between the west coast of Scotland and Canadian ports through two decades, with occasional cruises to the Mediterranean and the West Indies. By the summer of 1939 she was one of the oldest passenger liners still in first-line Donaldson service; the company had placed her on a heavily-booked late-August Glasgow-Montreal run carrying American and Canadian nationals, British emigrants to Canada, and European refugees fleeing the deteriorating political situation on the Continent. Her commanding officer for the September 1939 voyage was Captain James Cook, 63 years old, a career Donaldson mariner on his final pre-retirement Atlantic command. Her crew and passenger list, assembled on 1 September 1939 as Germany invaded Poland, included 1,103 passengers and 315 crew, a total complement of 1,418. The Disaster Lemp fired a single G7 torpedo at Athenia at 19:40 on 3 September 1939. The torpedo struck her port side at the engine room. U-30's second torpedo, fired immediately, malfunctioned and circled back toward the submarine itself, forcing Lemp to dive to avoid his own weapon; it eventually ran its course without striking anything. Athenia's engine room was breached by the initial torpedo strike. Her power failed; her pumps could not operate; her watertight doors, partially closed at the moment of attack, could not contain the flooding. She developed an immediate list to port. Captain Cook ordered abandon-ship at 20:10, 30 minutes after the torpedo strike. The evacuation proceeded in relatively good order because the sea was calm and the 26 lifeboats were adequately provisioned for the ship's actual complement. Athenia remained afloat through the night of 3-4 September 1939. Rescue ships reached her position in the early morning of 4 September: the Norwegian merchant ship Knute Nelson, the British destroyer HMS Electra, and the American freighter City of Flint. The three ships worked the scene through the morning, picking up survivors from the lifeboats and from debris in the water. Athenia finally sank at 10:50 on 4 September 1939 at approximately 56°30′N 14°10′W in approximately 250 metres of water. Of her 1,418 passengers and crew, 117 died: 50 were killed in the initial torpedo strike or in the engine room flooding, 10 died on the listing deck or in lifeboat launching accident