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S.S. ATHENIA
3rd September 1939
May 2009: Andrew Green, BBC Radio 4, would like to speak to people who survived this incident. Please contact me for his email address
The German U Boat U-30 had been at sea for several days, under strict orders to avoid contact or discovery. On September 3rd 1939 she received notification that Germany was now at war with Great Britain.
The U boat’s commander was Lieutenant Fritz-Julius Lemp. He had been in command for almost a year, therefore was not unaware of the “rules”. According to Admiral Doenitz at his trial at Nurenberg, Lemp had been under orders, when notified of the outbreak of hostilities, to keep a lookout for Armed Merchant Cruisers. Doenitz is not specific as to why this should be a priority at the outbreak of war. Germany had invaded Poland on 1st September 1939 and on 3rd September 1939, at 1115 hrs, Britain declared war on Germany.
U Boat, U-30
The Donaldosn Liner Athenia, on charter to Cunard, had already left Glasgow on the 1st September and was heading for Montreal with 1100 passengers, more than 300 of which were American. Many were women and children. On the evening of September 3rd, she was sighted by the U-30 about 250 miles northwest of Inishtrahull, Northern Ireland. She was running without lights. Before sailing all German U boats had been issued with strict orders to operate within the Prize Rules, international laws governing the conduct of war at sea. This was known as the Hague convention. Merchant ships were to be stopped and searched, if they were found to be carrying enemy cargo, they could be sunk. This was only after the crew had been seen safely into lifeboats. U-30 had received this signal. Upon sighting the ship, Lemp decided there and then that she was an Armed Merchant Cruiser and shadowed her, watching her zig-zig pattern and course and speed.
Lemp attacked the Athenia without warning. He fired two torpedoes, one of which exploded amidships, ripping open the bulkhead between the engine room and the boiler room. As soon as he had fired the two torpedoes he dived if a torpedo should come back on him. One did misfire. As he came back up to the surface he saw the Athenia starting to list and fired a third torpedo. This too missed. (see email below from John Hewitt, author, about this part, below.)
The Athenia begins to go down
Perhaps this torpedo being fired caused some of the survivors, in their panic, to imagine that they had been “fired upon”, as this was stated at the enquiry. Lemp was by now close enough to see her silhouette. Something troubled him, as the radio operator, Hogel, later recalled that he had heard the distress call.
“I realized it could not be a troop transport but had passengers on board. I knew her name from the call sign – Athenia. Then the commander came to the radio room and asked for the Lloyds Register which listed all sea vessels and the various types. His fingers came to rest on the Athenia. He was, of course, shocked”.
An apparent clear insight into what had gone through Lemps mind and his reaction. Soon afterwards the U-30 intercepted a plain language transmission from the ship identifying itself as the Athenia. Now that the Athenia had been transmitting, there was little need for Lemp to conceal his location, but he failed to radio back to base with his report, instead choosing to remain silent. Lemp knew full well the enormity of his blunder and of the consequences to Germany. I now have evidence that he also fired with his deck gun on the Athenia - see email June 08 below.
The ship sank with the loss of 112 passengers and crew. However, despite the fact that Lemp had murdered 28 US citizens, within hours Roosevelt had announced that his Government was preparing “a declaration of American neutrality”.
Survivors & How Punch Magazine saw the attack
Lemp remained silent for 11 more days, finally calling in on September 14th. But still he failed to mention the Athenia, instead he reported damage received in a confrontation with 2 destroyers after he had sunk the freighter Fanad Head, and to request permission to offload a wounded man in Iceland for urgent medical attention.
Lemp did not give any assistance to the survivors either, also contrary to the rules of engagement. Also, a few days layer, when he sank the Blairlogie, he did nothing there for survivors. (1) It is possible that he knew of the existence of the Norwegian freighter Knut Nelson in the vicinity and assumed they would come to the stricken ships aid. Going on his track record to date, I somehow do not think so. It is more likely that he just wanted to flee the scene as quickly as possible.
It was a horrendous mistake. Lemp had not taken time to correctly identify the target. He had only a couple of hours before been informed by U Boat Command that he was not on a war footing instead of a peacetime patrol, it is entirely possible that he panicked.
Lemp had disobeyed all his orders. His failure to offer assistance only made matters worse. He had simply run away. Most of the dead (figures vary by half dozen on different sources) had been trapped below deck in the 3rd and tourist dining rooms when the U-30 struck. A familiar story when reading about loss of life at sea in passenger ships, the lower “classes” all suffered the worst. One eye witness described the decks as strewn with bodies and another told of trapped children in cabins below. Amongst the dead were 28 Americans, all civilian. Within 24 hours news of the Nazi outrage echoed around the world. The first day of the war and Germany had broken all the rules. It was described as an act of total war against civilians. This was a propaganda gift to the British who used it to its full extent. Foreign newspapers gave it front page reports.
(1) Brian Crowe, Orkneys, in an email in Nov 05 tells me that there is evidence that Lemp did in fact give assistance to the Blairlogie. See separate page BLAIRLOGIE. This is a newspaper cutting from The Staten Island Advance Sept 19th 1939 remarking on the survivors story and subsequent rescue by an American ship. Survivors report that Lemp did in fact give aid to those in the lifeboats.
When the first British reports were received the German government did not believe them. The Propaganda Ministry asked if the Kriegsmarine was responsible and was told by naval authorities that no U-Boats were in the area. On September 7th, Grand Admiral Raeder stated that all U-Boats had been contacted and none was responsible for the disaster. This was also conveyed to the American ambassador. This statement was not entirely true, for several boats had not reported in. In fact, the Germans would not learn the facts until September 27 when the U-30 returned to Kiel Harbour.
The significance was not lost on Hitler. The first thing was to deny everything. According to Josef Goebbels, the Nazi Minister of Propaganda, it was in fact a torpedo from a British submarine that had hit the Athenia. Later he added that it was all a dirty trick by Winston Churchill to discredit Germany and to pull the United States into the war. Hitler was furious and imposed severe restrictions on all U-Boat operations. Admiral Doenitz, commander of the U-Boat arm, was to be frustrated by these restrictions for many months.
The next step which Hitler undertook was to send out an immediate order to the Kriegsmarine:
“The Fuhrer has forbidden attacks on passenger ships sailing independently or in convoy”.
No amount of official denials could convince the outside world that the loss of the SS Athenia was anything but a return to "German Barbarism", as the unrestricted submarine warfare of the First World War had been termed. Such moral limitations on submarine operations were not entirely logical. For a submarine, stealth is its most effective weapon. The Hague Convention agreements requiring submarines to surface and warn surface vessels, allowing crews to launch boats before attacking, were unrealistic. The British reaction was to immediately implement the convoy system and ordered all shipping to comply.
Lemp - Commander of U Boat U-30
When the U-30 returned to Kiel, Lemp and his crew were given strict orders and sworn to absolute secrecy. They were not to mention anything at all to do with the incident at any time. But the U-30 had arrived in post with victory pennants displayed on her conning tower, one of which showed 14000 tons, the tonnage of the Athenia. The official U Boat Command War Diary makes no mention of the incident and Lemp was ordered to falsify his War Diary by rewriting two complete pages. An entry for any vessel of 14000 tons does not appear.
Web site 3, listed below states that:
“Battle of the Atlantic – The six year long battle starts on the 3rd September with the sinking of the liner Athenia by U-30 (Lt Lemp) northwest of Ireland. She was mistaken for an armed merchant cruiser, and her destruction leads the Admiralty to believe unrestricted submarine warfare has been launched. Full convoy plans are put into operation, but in fact Hitler has ordered the U Boats to adhere to international law and after the Athenia incident, tightens controls for a while”
Thus began the Battle of the Atlantic.
Athenia’s sister ship Letitia did in fact later serve as an Armed Merchant Cruiser but was later converted back and eventually ended the war as a Hospital Ship.
This is the names of the 19 crewmembers lost from the Athenia sinking. The first 18 are on the Tower Hill Memorial. The last one is Canadian and is commemorated in Halifax Nova, Scotia.
CARLIN , Assistant Steward, JAMES, S.S. Athenia (Glasgow). Merchant Navy. 3rd - 4th September 1939. Age 56. Panel 12.
DONNELLY , Assistant Steward, IAN, S.S. Athenia (Glasgow). Merchant Navy. 3rd - 4th September 1939. Age 26. Panel 12.
DONNELLY , Assistant Steward, JOHN, S.S. Athenia (Glasgow). Merchant Navy. 3rd - 4th September 1939. Age 23. Panel 12.
ELDER , Donkeyman, JAMES, S.S. Athenia (Glasgow). Merchant Navy. 3rd - 4th September 1939. Age 45. Husband of Mary Elder, of Cambuslang, Lanarkshire. Panel 12.
FORDYCE , Watchman, CHARLES, S.S. Athenia (Glasgow). Merchant Navy. 3rd - 4th September 1939. Age 65. Son of George and Jessie Fordyce; husband of Mary Penelope Fordyce. Panel 12.
GALLAGHER , Greaser, HUGH, S.S. Athenia (Glasgow). Merchant Navy. 3rd - 4th September 1939. Age 23. Son of Thomas Gallagher, and of Isabel Gallagher, of Glasgow. Panel 12.
HARROWER , Stewardess, ALISON, S.S. Athenia (Glasgow). Merchant Navy. 3rd - 4th September 1939. Age 41. Daughter of William and Hannah Foster Denny Harrower. Panel 12.
HOGG , Assistant Steward, JOHN, S.S. Athenia (Glasgow). Merchant Navy. 3rd - 4th September 1939. Age 51. Husband of Sarah A. Hogg, of Brantford, Ontario, Canada. Panel 12.
JOHNSTON , Stewardess, MARGARET, S.S. Athenia (Glasgow). Merchant Navy. 3rd - 4th September 1939. Age 41. Daughter of James and Christina Johnston, of Glasgow. Panel 12.
KENT , Assistant Steward, JOHN, S.S. Athenia (Glasgow). Merchant Navy. 3rd - 4th September 1939. Age 50. Husband of Jessie Darroch Kent, of Bridgeton, Glasgow. Panel 12.
LAWLER , Stewardess, JESSIE, S.S. Athenia (Glasgow). Merchant Navy. 3rd - 4th September 1939. Age 60. Wife of Patrick Lawler, of Sholing, Southampton. Panel 12.
MARSHALL , Bellboy, JAMES, S.S. Athenia (Glasgow). Merchant Navy. 3rd - 4th September 1939. Age 15. Panel 12.
MORRISON , Steward, DAVID, S.S. Athenia (Glasgow). Merchant Navy. 3rd - 4th September 1939. Age 32. Panel 12.
McDERMOTT , Assistant Steward, MICHAEL J., S.S. Athenia (Glasgow). Merchant Navy. 3rd - 4th September 1939. Age 33. Panel 12.
McJARROW , Printer, JOHN, S.S. Athenia (Glasgow). Merchant Navy. 3rd - 4th September 1939. Age 39. Panel 12.
McKEOWN , Steward, JOHN, S.S. Athenia (Glasgow). Merchant Navy. 3rd - 4th September 1939. Age 47. Husband of M. E. McKeown, of Dunoon, Argyllshire. Panel 12.
PROVAN, Barber, DAVID, S.S. Athenia (Glasgow). Merchant Navy. 3rd - 4th September 1939. Age 65. Son of Alec and Margaret Provan; husband of Martha Provan, of Glasgow. Panel 12.
THOMSON , Assistant Steward, SAMUEL, S.S. Athenia (Glasgow). Merchant Navy. 3rd - 4th September 1939. Age 45. Husband of Julia McCafferty Thomson. of Glasgow. Panel 12.
BAIRD , Stewardess, HANNAH S.S. Athenia (Glasgow). Merchant Navy. 3rd - 4th September 1939 Canadian Merchant Navy HALIFAX MEMORIAL Nova Scotia, Canada Panel 17.
http://www.vac-acc.gc.ca/general/sub.cfm?source=collections/virtualmem/Detail&casualty=2557406
Registers and Indexes of Birth, Marriages & Deaths of Passengers & Seamen at Sea.
The records are held in what is known as BT files and are very important you remember the file No. The file you need to access is "BT334" This will give you the following information:
Name of ship, official No. port of registry, date of death, place of death, name of deceased, sex, age, rating/rank, nationality and birthplace, last place of abode, cause of death and remarks.
Outward Bound Passenger Lists 1890-1960 are held in BT27 an gives information on passenger lists of people leaving the United Kingdom by sea kept by the Board of Trade's Commercial and Statistical Department and its successors. There is also BT32 covering 1906-1951 Registers of passenger lists kept by the Board of Trade's Commercial, Labour and Statistical Department and its successors.
Please note the PRO will not search their files for you, if you are unable to attend in person, they will give the names of independent researchers who will do it for an hourly fee (very expensive).
Public Records Office,
Kew,
Richmond,
Surrey,
TW9 4DU,
Tel. 020 8876 3444.
Liner (1f/2m). L/B: 526.3 bp × 66.4 (160.4m × 20.2m). Tons: 13,465 grt. Hull: steel. Comp.: cabin 516; 3rd 1,000. Mach.: steam turbines, 2 screws; 15 kts. Built: Fairfield Shipbuilding & Engineering Co., Ltd., Govan, Scotland; 1923.
Athenia was built for the Anchor-Donaldson Limited's service between Britain and Canada, and for most of her career sailed between either Glasgow or Liverpool and Quebec and Montreal, with occasional stops at Halifax and St. John. At the height of the winter season she frequently operated as a cruise ship. In 1935, the Anchor Line went out of business, and her owners became the Donaldson Atlantic Line Ltd.
Athenia was the first British ship sunk by a German U-boat in World War II. Germany had invaded Poland on September 1 and Britain declared war on Germany at 1115 on September 3, shortly after Athenia sailed from Glasgow en route to Montreal with 1,100 passengers embarked, more than 300 of whom were American citizens.
My thanks to MacKenzie Gregory for the
above Athenia Lists.
His site is here:
http://ahoy.tk-jk.net/
The above medallion was owned by a Seaman R Williams who sailed on the Athenia. It was sent to me by a Mr Bearcutt. Seaman R Williams sent these to his aunt.
The above three images were sent
to me by Will Smith - The box containing the paper serviette from the Athenia
and the other of the serviette itself given to his Grandmother by her sister
Hannah Baird
In researching a question put to me by a reader of this page I discovered that, in WW1, a ship known as the SS Athenia, was sunk in the same place, with the loss of 15 lives, off Inishtrahull, Eire, by a U Boat in 1917!!! The ship, bearing the same name, was built in 1904. Strange coincidence!
April 07 - An Email: Just read your article with pleasure – my mother Kathleen Ferguson and sisters Kathleen Ferguson (aged 9) and Margaret (almost 3) where on the ill fated ship returning to Canada after visiting family in South Shields. Margaret is still living. I believe there was a photo of her being rescued by a seaman in the Toronto Star (he has her tucked into his life vest). I believe that they were rescued by a destroyer and taken to Glasgow. My mother had a back injury. Her greatest fear in the weeks following were of having to set out again across the Atlantic with two children. My mother said that they never went below deck on the second voyage. It must have been very cold to travel the North Atlantic at the end of October in blackout. My father waited for news of their survival for days and at first only one Kathleen Ferguson was listed because it was thought that there was a duplication. I will be ordering your book. Thanks so much – Gwen Chmilar.
April 08: An Email from Australia. My father Eland Sutton was a member of the RNVR; his ship HMS Escort came to the rescue of the Athenia - this is his eye witness story:
On September 3 1939 my ship HMS Escort was detached from detail at 2000 hours when the merchant ship Athenia sent out a SOS that it had been torpedoed at 2030 by U-Boat . We arrived at the position before dawn in the darkness, the crew saw hundreds of tiny lights attached to lifebelts of people floating in the water most of these were dead from cold and exposure. Among them was a Polish girl about 12, she was dead, and on her coat was a label showing her to be a refugee on her way to the United States to a new life. Even after many years I often feel upset about that. The survivors were mainly women most of them in night cloths shivering with cold, the crew got spare clothes from been their kitbags and handed them out. Someone asked me "Where is mrs ???? she had a broken leg and had been in the Athenia's hospital"; nobody was sure if she had been picked up. My Lieutenant took a boat across to the sinking ship and found her in the darkened hospital, her first words were "I knew the Navy would not leave me behind".
My father passed away in 1982 and was buried at sea by the Royal Australian Navy Volunteer Reserve. My father received a tankard from the MC Donaldson Atlantic line for his part in the rescue; I have only recently donated it to the RSL here in Armadale Western Australia. I believe this tankard is possibly the only one in the world as after sailing my fathers ship was sunk, but fortunately my dad had been sent to another duty! Peter Sutton.
June 2008: From John Hewitt, author. One of the survivors of the sinking of the Athenia was a Robert Hanna from Bangor, County Down N. Ireland. I have in front of me a letter wwhich he wrote home to his mother dated 15th September 1939. I am now certain that the U-Boat did fire its deck gun at the Athenia. The bit that may interest you is, He writes,
" I was lying munching an apple when a woman screamed,"Look"!. I turned my head and there about 200 yards away sat a submarine, and from it a white streak shooting two towards us. Just then there was a terrific jaar, and a loud explosion. The whole boat listed about 45 degrees and I was thrown on deck. I rushed up the ssloping deck, because I, like others, thought the sship was going to overturn, it gradually righted, and just then there was a flash, and a "Shell" exploded on the tourist deck, carrying away the mast. OIl and splinters were flying everywhere and one nearly carried my head off as it whizzed by my face. I ran up the tourist companion way and then onto the boat deck. Here everthing was a shambles, men aaand women lying dead all over deck, some terribly mangled". He goes on to say that when he was in the life boat the periscope of the u-boat passed about ten feet from them and the bow caught under his lifeboat almost overturning them. Cheers John.
Crew Ransacked First Class Accommodation Instead of Lowering boats!
Colleen McCaffrey contacted me in July 2008: My father was a deckhand on the Athenia - he died in 1992 - from Glasgow, Scotland. He suppressed memories of the event during my youth but began to recall the entire event when I found a book about it, Tomorrow Never Came by Caulfield. We traveled to Scotland in 1975 (he had never returned home before that time, though my relatives came to California to visit us) and he proceeded to tell me many of his memories of the event. He was 23 years old at the time and spent hours in a lifeboat with women and children and very little clothing on. He had terrible stories of some of the crew members robbing passenger cabins in first class instead of lowering boats, and the frantic captain trying to organize his helter skelter crew. My father also recounted memories of the sub surfacing in the distance and raking the boat with gunfire. He was picked up by a Norwegian vessel that took the rescued to Canada. At this point, my father told the authorities he was a Canadian citizen and hid out in Toronto until enlisting in the RCAF about one year later. He claimed that Mrs. Lubitch, the wife of the Hollywood director, and her child were in his lifeboat. He is mentioned in the Caulfield book and I have seen a picture of him aboard the rescue ship, wrapped up in a blanket. As a survivor he had a lifetime of guilt about not being able to save more people that night, and himself living while others did not.
Aug 11th 2008: I got this email: My family, (my Mother, three siblings, and me - I was nine at the time] and hundreds of others sailed on 2 September 1939 from Southampton on the SS Manhattan hoping to return to America before the bombings began. We had been scheduled to leave on the first but our departure was delayed as the ship was late leaving LeHarve, having to load several thousand folding cots and food for the crowd of passengers desiring to board without reservations. We made an unscheduled stop at Cobb, Ireland to pick up some 200 additional passengers, mostly Catholic priests who had been vacationing there. It was shortly thereafter that our ship received word of the sinking of the Athenia. The Captain, as I remember it, first told us that a man was overboard. We sat dead in the water for many hours while the crew 'searched' for him.. Word did finally filter among the passengers that a German U-boat had sunk a British ship just north of us and that was the reason for the engines being 'stopped'. We became very frightened that we would be their next target. The Captain of Manhattan immediately hung sailors aver the sides of the ship and they spent more than one day painting US flags as large as they could. These flags were bathed in spotlights at night as we got underway. I am sure that sinking affected much more shipping than just ours but thought you might have interest in the ripple effect at the scene. . Jean Knecht Eldredge.
August 28th 2008:
A film company are hoping to make a documentary regarding the sinking of the Athenia and would
like those people who have been kind enough to contact me, to contact them.
The email address is as follows: katherine -at - picturefilms.tv. Replace the
-at- with @ to send her an email.
Sept 8th 2008. An email from Ronal Peers who tells me that his dad, Anthony Peers, was aboard this vessel and was on deck when he recalls the "thud and paint chips flying and ladders falling" but he does not recall the U Boat shelling the ship. He was off watch and was third watch engineer. He also recalls an "orderly evacuation".
December 13th 2008: My aunt was a passenger on the Athenia ( a young Greek girl of 24)and she has often told us what happened that day. Today she is 93 and still has her suitcase and all the newspaper clippings from when the passengers arrived in Halifax. I've used your info in a simple family album that I'm putting together. Vasie Kelos, Toronto, Canada.
December 22 2008: An email from Greg McCLelland - My Grandfather was the Captain of the Swedish Private yacht, the Southern Cross, that was one of the vessels that came to the rescue of the stricken Athenian. I have the original telegrams received and transmitted from the Southern Cross stating that they had been torpedoed and were sinking fast and they responded stating that they were making maximum speed towards her. The BBC expert stated that these were important historical documents proving that the Athenian had been torpedoed by a U-Boat.
You may also be interested to know that the Southern Cross was the largest private yacht in the world at that time, had previously been owned by Howard Hughes, but the owner at the time was Axel Wenner-Gren, the founder and owner of Electrolux. He was friendly with Hermann Goering and, just prior to war breaking out, had tried to mediate between him and Chamberlain to prevent hostilities beginning. Realising that war was inevitable, he left Scotland to visit his friends the Duke and Duchess of Windsor in the Bahamas and it was during this crossing that they came to the rescue of the Athenian’s passengers and crew. My grandfather went on to be a commander in the merchant navy, was sunk two or three times on the Murmansk convoys, but survived the war.
The next three images are of the original telegrams regarding Athenia from Greg.
March 2009: I received an email from Erika Federman nee Hubscher. I just happened to notice your request about survivors of the Athenia. After so many years I am in the process of writing my story. I was a passenger on the ship, rescued by the private Swedish yacht and later transferred to the City of Flint, an American Freighter, to continue to the States...my brother and I became separated from our Mother and came alone first to Halifax and from there we were flown to New York by The Journal American, a New York newspaper...we made all the Movietone news, etc. A German television crew interviewed me and I appear at the onset of their film. I came across your notice while researching some of the facts of the sinking. We were Austrians who were awaiting our visas to the United States in London and those came only a couple of weeks before the start of the war. By the way, I saw that life boat go under because it was just ahead of ours as we pulled up to our rescue ship. I would like to find others who survived...do you have their names or addresses? (sadly , no - mk).
April 9th 2009: From William Gibbins (New Zealand). My Canadian born mother Susan (nee Mooney) and her siblings travelled on the Athenia with their Irish born Parents to Belfast Northern Ireland in November 1937 and they made friends with many of the crew. My mother who was 15 years old at the time was in particular very fond of the Bell Boy looking after her cabin and was saddened to hear of his death when the Athenia was torpedoed. From the crew list you have on your site James Marshall seems to match the recollections of my mother who remembered him fondly and talked a lot about her wartime experiences in Northern Ireland and travel to New Zealand in 1951 on the SS Atlantis. I found this site by accident when looking for some pictures of the Athenia to check against an old photo I have of a ship of similar size found when redoing and album of old photographs from my mother. The photo I have is similar but the ship (taken in the distance) does not match the Athenia. The story my mother heard on the sinking was that the Athenia was targeted because it was claimed she was carrying arms, a claim my mother always vigorously denied saying she had been around every “inch” of that ship and saw no evidence of arms and said the Athenia was only a small ship and there was no place where they could be stored. Your site and others I have found finally tell the truth surrounding the sinking of the Athenia rather then the propaganda my mother heard at the time.
May 09 Email from James Birmingham: My wifes late stepfather was a sailor in the Royal Navy aboard HMS Escort. He saved some of the passengers of the Athenia. He was presented with a silver cigarette case, with an inscription:-
J Harrison
HMS Escort
from
Athenia Survivors
4-09-39
Referrals:
I got the above information from many sources, some more accurate than others. Some can be wildly inaccurate such as a Liverpool Museum site that states that the U-110 sank the Athenia. NOT, I might add, the one listed below. However, the main sites that I can recommend are:
1. http://www.greatships.net/athenia.html - articles on Athenia
2. http://uboat.net/history/athenia.html - Excellent U boat site – Athenia
3. http://www.naval-history.net – Day by Day, Month by Month, the story unfolds.
The photograph of the Halifax Herald is on display in HQ Western Approaches, Rumford Street, Liverpool that has its own web site at:
4. http://www.liverpoolwarmuseum.co.uk
5. http://smmlonline.com/articles/athenia/athenia.html - Modelling site
6. http://www.onthenet.com.au/~biss/athenia.htm - Informative
7. http://www.theshipslist.com/ships/lines/donaldson.html - Shipping company site
The following information can be found on another Athenia related site at: http://ahoy.tk-jk.net/macslog/SSAtheniaFirstCasualtyoft.html the site of Mackenzie J Gregory.
http://www.gjenvick.com/DonaldsonAtlanticLine/1938-09-02-PassengerList-WB-Athenia-Cabin-Tourist.html
http://www.ahoy.tk-jk.net/macslog/LetterofthanksfromanAthen.html copy of a letter from a passenger on the Athenia.
Maritime Disasters of WW2. My first
ever book - order it here - please? £11 only - click on the banner
Buy My WW2 Book here - Athenia is Chapter One
http://www.orcadian.co.uk/features/articles/athenia.htm
January 2006: The Orcadian, an Orkneys Newspaper, has published an article on the Athenia, in particular, a lifeboat of hers. Click on the link above to view the article.
http://college.hmco.com/history/readerscomp/ships/html/sh_008100_athenia.htm