Nazis sank to new depths to cover up ‘secret’ attack on cruise liner
Passengers aboard a British ocean liner were the first casualties of World War II. looks at the mistake that led to a night of terror
JUST hours after Britain declared war on Germany, the first blow was struck. U-boat commander Oberleutnant Fritz Julius Lemp spotted the British ocean liner Athenia off the coast of Ireland and fired two torpedoes at the vessel mistakenly believing that it was an armed warship.
More than a 100 innocent passengers and crew lost their lives. Many on board were Americans and Canadians travelling from Glasgow to Montreal in Canada via Liverpool and Belfast ahead of the war.
The ill-fated Athenia was the first British ship to be sunk during the Second World War.
British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain had announced that the country was at war with Germany shortly after 11am on September 3, 1939 and the 525ft liner was struck several hours later at 7.38pm and sank beneath the waves the following morning.
Connecticut teacher Thomas E Finley and his wife Mildred were both aboard when one of the torpedoes struck the liner’s portside and hit the engine room when the
Rescuers help injured passengers and crew ship was around
250 miles northwest of Inishtrahull. Mildred was among survivors in the first lifeboat while Thomas left the sinking passenger ship in the last. He later recalled the moment the torpedo struck saying: “The noise was not deafening, but it was loud enough to be disturbing.
“I was sitting on the tourist deck at the back of the funnel and I distinctly felt the explosion as it came up through the hatch at the back of the funnel. The lights of the ship went out immediately. It was not dark on the deck at that time, but it was dark below. As my wife, Mildred, and I made a dash for our state room to get our life preservers I saw two of the crew dead on the deck. They had been blown up through the hatch by the explosion.”
The couple and the other survivors were rescued at 7am the next day and taken aboard one of several ships that had come to the aid of the stricken vessel.
Thomas said: “The sailors did everything they could for us. They put us to bed in their hammocks and supplied us with food, tea and cigarettes.”
Some of the survivors were taken to Galway harbour aboard the Norwegian tanker Knute Nelson while others were picked up by the Royal Navy destroyer HMS Electra, HMS Fame, HMS Escort, American cargo ship City Of Flint and Swedish yacht Southern Cross.
A young John Kennedy, whose father was the American ambassador in London at the time, travelled to Glasgow as a special envoy to meet with some of the US survivors taken there and talked to Mr and Mrs Finley.
Thomas, who taught at the Loomis School in Windsor, Connecticut, later described the night aboard the lifeboats waiting for rescue saying:
“In my lifeboat, which was heavily loaded, we were unable to set off flares until late at night. The sea was comparatively calm, but it roughened towards morning.”
He added: “My wife, Mildred, cut her forehead and bruised or strained one of her ankles when the lifeboat gave a lurch.”
Some of the rescued American children were taken to the Beresford Hotel in Glasgow while many of the injured were treated at the city’s Western Infirmary.
The torpedoing of innocent civilians aboard a defenceless passenger ship prompted a quick cover-up by Nazi Germany which feared the shocking attack could lead to America joining the war.
Nazi propaganda minister Josef Goebbels denied they were responsible and even claimed Winston Churchill, who was then First Lord Of Admiralty, had sunk the liner for propaganda reasons.
Germany’s Grand Admiral Erich Raeder was later given a report by the U-boat commander Lemp about the attack and he in turn took the matter to Hitler, who decided it should remain a secret and the submarine’s log rewritten to hide the facts. The truth only came to light several years later during the Nuremberg trials in 1946.
The sinking of the Athenia marked the start of the Battle of the Atlantic and led to Britain starting a convoy system to give greater protection to other merchant vessels.
Winston Churchill later wrote in his memoirs: “The only thing that really frightened me during the war was the U-boat peril.”
He also ordered: “Enemy submarines are to be called U-boats. The term submarine is to be reserved for Allied underwater vessels.
U-boats are those dastardly villains who sink our ships, while submarines are those gallant and noble craft which sink theirs.”
Lemp, who torpedoed the Athenia by mistake, died two years later when his submarine was damaged by depth charges.
He failed to sink the sub properly as his last act and it led to the British getting their hands on one of the prized Engima cipher machines, which helped break the Germans’ secret codes.