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SS ATHENIA
Athenia was built by the Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company, Ltd., and was launched at Govan, Scotland in 1923. She was built for Anchor-Donaldson Ltd.'s route between Britain and Canada. For most of her career she sailed between either Glasgow or Liverpool, and Quebec and Montreal. During the height of winter, she operated as a cruise ship. After 1935, her owners became the Donaldson Atlantic Line Ltd.
Athenia displaced 13,465 tons, was 526.3 feet long and had a 66.4 foot beam (160.4m x 20.2m). She had two masts and a single funnel. She carried 516 cabin class passengers and an additional 1,000 in 3rd class. She was a twin screw vessel powered by steam turbines, with a top speed of 15 knots.
On 3 September 1939, just hours after Britain declared war on Germany, U-boat U-30 (Oberleutnant Fritz-Julius Lemp) sank Athenia, mistaking her for an armed merchant cruiser. The 13,500 ton passenger liner was carrying 1,103 civilians, including more than 300 Americans, and 315 crew, from Glasgow to Montreal. The ship, under Captain James Cook, had departed there on 1 September, and after calling at Liverpool and Belfast departed Britain on the 3rd. By evening that day she was 60 miles south of Rockall (250 miles northwest of Inishtrahull, Ireland), when U-30 sighted her and fired two torpedoes into Athenia's hull without warning. She began to settle by the stern. As Athenia was an unarmed passenger ship, the attack was in violation of the prize rules U-boats were to be operating under, that obliged them to stop and search potential civilian targets and allow passengers and crew to abandon ship before sinking their vessel.
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