page_title: SS Athenia (1922)
section_title: Loss
hierarchical_section_title: SS Athenia (1922) / Loss
caption_attribution_description: Workers painting the stern of the SS Athenia, the first British ship sunk during World War II.
context_page_description: SS Athenia was a steam turbine transatlantic passenger liner built in Glasgow, Scotland in 1923 for the Anchor-Donaldson Line, which later became the Donaldson Atlantic Line. She worked between the United Kingdom and the east coast of Canada until September 1939, when a torpedo from the German submarine U-30 sank her in the Western Approaches.
  Athenia was the first UK ship to be sunk by Germany during World War II, and the incident accounted for the Donaldson Line's greatest single loss of life at sea, with 117 civilian passengers and crew killed. The sinking was condemned as a war crime. Among those dead were 28 US citizens, leading Germany to fear that the US might join the war on the side of the UK and France. Wartime German authorities denied that one of their vessels had sunk the ship. An admission of responsibility did not come from German authorities until 1946.
  She was the second Donaldson ship of that name to be torpedoed and sunk off Inishtrahull by a German submarine. The earlier Athenia was similarly attacked and sunk in 1918.
context_section_description: On 1 September 1939 Athenia, commanded by Captain James Cook, left Glasgow for Montreal via Liverpool and Belfast. She carried 1,103 passengers, including about 500 Jewish refugees, 469 Canadians, 311 US citizens and 72 UK subjects, and 315 crew. Despite clear indications that war would break out any day, she departed Liverpool at 13:00 hrs on 2 September without recall, and on the evening of the 3rd was 60 nautical miles (110 km) south of Rockall and 200 nautical miles (370 km) northwest of Inishtrahull, Ireland, when she was sighted by the German submarine U-30 commanded by Oberleutnant Fritz-Julius Lemp around 16:30. Lemp later claimed that the fact that she was a darkened ship steering a zigzag course which seemed to be well off the normal shipping routes made him believe she was either a troopship, a Q-ship or an armed merchant cruiser. U-30 tracked Athenia for three hours until eventually, at 19:40, when both vessels were between Rockall and Tory Island, Lemp ordered two torpedoes to be fired. One exploded on Athenia's port side in her engine room, and she began to settle by the stern.
  Several ships, including the E-class destroyer HMS Electra, responded to Athenia's distress signal. Electra's commander, Lt. Cdr. Sammy A. Buss, was senior officer present and took charge. He sent the F-class destroyer HMS Fame on an anti-submarine sweep of the area, while Electra, another E-class destroyer, HMS Escort, the Swedish yacht Southern Cross, the 5,749 GRT Norwegian tanker MS Knute Nelson, and the US cargo ship City of Flint, rescued survivors. Between them they rescued about 981 passengers and crew. The German liner SS Bremen, en route from New York to Murmansk, also received Athenia's distress signal, but ignored it. City of Flint took 223 survivors to Pier 21 at Halifax, and Knute Nelson landed 450 at Galway.
  Athenia remained afloat for more than 14 hours, until she finally sank stern first at 10:40 the next morning. Of the 1,418 aboard, 98 passengers and 19 crew members were killed. Many died in the engine room and aft stairwell, where the torpedo hit. The British crews were famous for putting the passengers' lives before their own, and were expertly trained to handle such "events"; nonetheless, about 50 people died when one of the lifeboats was crushed in the propeller of Knute Nelson. 
  No. 5A lifeboat came alongside the empty tanker and tied up, against advice, astern of No 12 lifeboat. Only 15 feet (5 m) separated the life boat from the tanker's exposed propeller. Once No. 12 lifeboat was emptied it was cast adrift and began to sink. This fact was reported to the bridge of Knute Nelson. For some reason the ship's engine order telegraph was then set to full ahead. 5A lifeboat's mooring line or "warp" parted under the stress, causing the lifeboat to be pulled back into the revolving propeller.
  There was a second accident at about 05:00 hrs when No. 8 lifeboat capsized in a heavy sea below the stern of the yacht Southern Cross, killing ten people. Three passengers were crushed to death while trying to transfer from lifeboats to the Royal Navy destroyers. Other deaths were due to falling overboard from Athenia and her lifeboats, or to injuries and exposure.  Ultimately, all deaths were the result of the U-boat violating orders and torpedoing a merchant passenger liner.
  54 dead were Canadian and 28 were US citizens, which led to German fears that the incident would bring the US into the war.
caption: Workers painting Athenia's stern, summer 1937
exif: {}