Athenia
| Name | Athenia | ||
| Type: | Steam passenger ship | ||
| Tonnage | 13,581 tons | ||
| Completed | 1923 - Fairfield Shipbuilding & Engineering Co Ltd, Govan, Glasgow | ||
| Owner | Donaldson Brothers Ltd, Glasgow | ||
| Homeport | Glasgow | ||
| Date of attack | 3 Sep 1939 | Nationality:  British | |
| Fate | Sunk by U-30 (Fritz-Julius Lemp) | ||
| Position | 56.44N, 14.05W - Grid AM 1969 - See location on a map - | ||
| Complement | 1418 (112 dead and 1306 survivors). | ||
| Convoy | |||
| Route | Glasgow - Liverpool (2 Sep) - Montreal | ||
| Cargo | General cargo and 1103 passengers | ||
| History | Completed in April 1923 | ||
| Notes on loss | At 19.39 hours on 3 Sep, 1939, the unescorted and unarmed Athenia (Master James Cook) was torpedoed without warning by U-30 about 250 miles west of Inishtrahull. One torpedo struck on the port side in the engine room, causing the ship to sink at 10.00 hours on 4 September in 56°42N/14°05W. The most of the 315 crew members and 1103 passengers (including 316 US-citizens) abandoned ship in 26 lifeboats. 19 crew members and 93 passengers (28 of them US-citizens) were lost. Many of them died when one lifeboat, carrying 52 female passengers and three sailors, came due to the darkness in contact with the propeller of the Norwegian motor merchant Knute Nelson (Master Carl Johan Anderssen) and capsized, only eight survived. The Norwegian vessel had been the first ship on the scene, picked up 449 survivors and landed them at Galway on 5 September. The Swedish motor yacht Southern Cross picked up 376 survivors and later transferred 236 of them to the City of Flint (Master Joseph A. Gainard), which landed them at Halifax. While HMS Fame (H 78) (Cdr P.N. Walter, RN) screened the rescue operations, HMS Electra (H 27) (LtCdr S.A. Buss, RN) and HMS Escort (H 66) (LtCdr J. Bostock, RN) picked up the remaining survivors and landed them at Greenock on 5 September. The Athenia was the first ship sunk by a U-boat in the Second World War. This attack was carried out in contravention of standing orders, Lemp assumed the ship was an armed merchant cruiser, because she was darkened and zigzagging. The attack was denied by the Germans during the war and the KTB of U-30 was changed by higher order. It is a common erroneous understanding that the Athenia was shelled. What some survivors saw was a torpedo exploding near the U-boat. A second torpedo had been stuck with running engines in its tube during the initial attack and the sub was very nearly destroyed as the torpedo had timer detonators, but they managed to dislodge the stuck torpedo in time. | ||
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