The rowing was desperate for a long time, then the oars rested as we were swept to what seemed to us a terrific height by the swell. Then down we sank—to rise again. All of us violently ill—even the crew. The boat filled rapidly with water. I stood in water to my knees. All night water was bailed out.
—DOROTHY BULKLEY1
The moon cast a pale light across the sea. From time to time the endless six-foot waves would crest, catch the eerie light with a certain sparkle, and hiss ominously for just a moment. The emergency lights on the Athenia burned long into the night also, illuminating the irony of their situation to those in the lifeboats. And every once in a while a flare would go up from one of the lifeboats, as if to say “we are here too.” From time to time also clouds would pass before the moon, bringing light rainsqualls, just to remind them again that they were cold and wet and separated from anyone on a very broad ocean. “We were a bunch of huddled forms,” one survivor recalled, “tossed about on the swells.”2 For the children, some crying, some fallen asleep, and the rest who were cold, wet, drenched with fuel oil, seasick, and anxious, there was only the endless up-and-down twisting motion of the boats riding the Atlantic swells.
Getting into the lifeboats was no resolution of the crisis. The precariousness of the situation was nicely stated by Charles Wharton Stork: “Ah! So we’re safe, if you can call it safe to be in an open rowboat far from land in darkness with a sea that runs to waves five feet above our gunwales.” Nevertheless for Eva Blair getting away from the Athenia in the lifeboat was a liberation. “The realization dawned upon me unexpectedly,” she said. “God had spared my life!”3 Judith Evelyn’s recollections were filled with more practical problems. Once they were all in the boat on the water, it proved impossible to release the shackles holding the blocks and the falls to the boat. Axes were produced to cut the falls so the boat could be freed from the ship. As her lifeboat began to move away from the Athenia someone, “in true storybook fashion,” as she put it, roused everyone to begin singing. Just at that moment, however, they nearly ran into another lifeboat in the darkness, which stopped the singing for good. Dorothy Bulkley found her boat in even more dangerous circumstances. Before they were released and able to push way from the ship another boat, 11A, was being lowered right on top of them. Shouts and screams seemed to stop the boat for a moment, dangling just above them. The falls were cut with axes and knives, Sara Grossman remembered, and the boat finally freed. Herbert Spiegelberg, who was also in Bulkley’s lifeboat, later told his Swarthmore College students and colleagues that they had just been able to dig the oars out from beneath the people jammed into his boat and push off from the side of the Athenia when the stern of 11A splashed down into the water. It was so dark that he could not see how many fell into the sea, but the screams of those in that boat led him to believe that there were many. When the bow fall of 11A was slacked and the boat leveled, people had to be pulled out of the water and back into the boat. Several people were injured, including Mrs. Elsie Insch who was hit in the face and badly scarred by one of the blocks. The boat was now filled with badly shaken people, not to mention seawater and fuel oil pouring from the ruptured bunkers in the ship. The flares in the boat also ignited, causing another panic because people feared that being covered in oil they might themselves catch fire. The flares had to be put out before they caused any injury or damage. The boat splashing into the water from six to twelve feet probably sprung some of the planks and may well have dislodged the plug as well. In any case, the boat leaked badly for the rest of the night, despite constant bailing.4
Many boats leaked for one reason or another. Alma Bloom said that the men in her boat were busy bailing until the plug was found and put in place. May Ingram, who sat covered with a blanket, recounted that her boat leaked and that people bailed with their shoes until a pail was found. This enabled them to lower the amount of water in the boat, but it was never completely emptied. She said the boatswain’s mate in charge of their boat had them put up the mast in order to make sail, but what was presumed to be the sail turned out to be a tarpaulin. People in Jeanette Jordan’s boat bailed with their shoes until a pail was found, after which a small man who had been “desperately ill” bailed throughout the night. Hugh Swindley bailed all night. Barbara Rodman’s boat had to be bailed constantly, and several people in it were injured also. They also picked up some people in the water, including a woman whose arm was broken. “I stood in water to my knees,” Dorothy Bulkley said, but when she got cold and bent down to get out of the wind she was in water up to her waist. There were also children in her boat who were “half submerged.” Thomas Quine said that his boat leaked at first, but after six hours it stopped. He concluded that the dry seams had swelled up sufficiently to stop the leaking. In addition to leaking, there was a danger that the boats would take seawater over the sides and occasionally they did. Most of the boats were loaded to capacity or more, with the result that they were riding low in the water. The waves, which were running about six feet when the boats were put in the water, increased over night to about ten feet, so there was some real danger. “The seas were mountains,” Helen Edna Campbell remembered.5 Nevertheless there were some boats that did not leak, did not ship water, and were perfectly dry all night.
Another real problem was the difficulty in attempting to maneuver the lifeboats. Many survivors complained that there was no rudder in their boat, or that the rudder was broken, or that the tiller was missing. Theoretically a steering oar, or sweep, could have been used, but there was a problem with oars also inasmuch as they seemed to have been in very short supply. Charles Van Newkirk, a seaman who was traveling on the Athenia, reported that on his boat there were only five oars and a rudder, but no tiller and no pail. In fact, the oars and other gear were stored on the bottom of the boats, under the thwarts. But in the dark, when the boats were filled with as many as ninety frightened people, many of them women and children and a number of people who did not understand English, it proved very difficult to extract the oars, find the oarlocks and set them in place, and find people capable of rowing. Both Professor Spiegelberg and Hugh Swindley described the difficulty of getting the oars out from the bottom of their filled lifeboats and getting the boat under way.6
Rowing these huge, heavy boats was a real problem. Helen Hannay said there were not enough men in her boat to row, so they just drifted. There were not any men in Agnes Stuppel’s boat, she said, until some swimmers were hauled into the boat from the sea and they rowed. Having also been pulled out of the sea into his boat, young James Goodson gave his sweater to one of the college girls and offered to row. He was placed between two refugees, one of whom spoke Yiddish and could understand Goodson’s German and the other who talked to Goodson in broken English. Their objective was to keep the boat headed into the wind. Ida Mowry said there were six men in her boat, two elderly gentlemen, two stewards, and two sailors; the two sailors rowed while the others bailed. Gustav Anderson worked one of the four oars in his boat, attempting to keep the craft headed into the wind. But after an hour he “collapsed from exhaustion.” Joseph Insch and a boy of seventeen each took an oar, while eight women struggled with the two other oars. Together they managed to get their boat about five hundred yards away from the Athenia. Professor Charles Wharton Stork teamed up with a young man in boat No. 7. They had not been able to find the oarlocks, so the young man held the oar while Stork rowed. Stork concluded that all they could do with the oars was to steady the boat. He also gave credit to young Wilson L. Smith Jr., who worked one of the other oars. F. Elwood MacPherson rowed, but his boat was so crowded that he had to row standing up. Montgomery Evans attempted to row sitting on a thwart, but whenever he tried to brace his feet on the floorboards he was repeatedly warned that he was about to step on the baby of motion picture director Ernst Lubitsch. As a result he was so unbalanced that he concluded that the young women in the boat were doing much better at the task. Mrs. Jessie Gillespie rowed, aided by her two sons, aged eleven and ten. One of the Texas college girls, Maxine Robinson, only sixteen years old, said she rowed for four hours. “My hands are all blistered from rowing,” she pointed out later. Hugh Swindley remembered seeing one man in his boat rowing steadily while desperately seasick. In Judith Evelyn’s boat there were two oars on one side and four on the other. Attempts to extract additional oars from underneath the people huddled in the bottom of the boat met with “screams of terror”; as a result it was almost impossible to row the boat.7
All of these matters might have been taken care of by Athenia crewmembers, but of course many of them had been killed or injured by the explosion of the torpedo in the engine room. Some survivors complained that there was no crewmember in their boat, or the person commanding the boat was a steward or bartender rather than an experienced seaman. Certainly the passengers, both women and men, did most of the rowing. Eventually Louis Molgat, from Ste. Rose du Lac, Manitoba, who had served in the French navy during the First World War, took charge of his boat, together with a Danish passenger. Edith Bridge said there was one ship’s “officer” in her boat, but that he was injured and unconscious. There were four crewmembers in his boat, Joseph Insch said, but two of them had broken arms. One crewmember who rowed and bailed was nurse Campbell, who helped Joseph B. L. MacDonald in boat No. 10. Indeed several nurses were singled out for their help in the boats. Fourteen-year-old Donald Wilcox rowed in his boat. There were several members of the crew who worked to fend off his boat from the Athenia until all the passengers were on board. In the meantime passengers, including a number of women, were at the oars. As the boat got under way, the crewmembers took over some of the oars. Wilcox remembered there being five oars on each side and three rowers on each oar, and Second Officer K. G. Crockett instructing them on how to row effectively in the six-foot swells. The lifeboat was so big and so heavy in the water that to Wilcox, attempting “to take a normal stroke of the oar felt as if it had been placed against the side of a house, as the fully loaded lifeboat didn’t move an inch!” In fact the initial object was merely to get the boats away from the Athenia and then stream a sea anchor so that the boats would not drift too far apart. The Donaldson Line report concluded that there were responsible employees in every boat, but it is clear from the point of view of some survivors not all of them showed leadership or even assertiveness. Sir Richard Lake, the former lieutenant governor of Saskatchewan, remembered the “quiet courage” of the people in lifeboat No. 6, despite everyone being seasick. “Nothing but words of cheer and encouragement could be heard,” he said. Sir Richard, although seventy-nine years old, and Lady Dorothy both willingly helped to row their lifeboat.8
Many passengers thought that the crew of the Athenia did excellent work in the crisis and they were very grateful to them. James Boyle wanted to “give all credit” to the officers and crew for “their handling of the passengers and lifeboats.” Professor Damon Boynton also thought the efforts of the officers and crew were “exceptionally fine in view of the total unexpectedness of the disaster.” There were no signs of panic that Sara Grossman could see and she thought everything was handled efficiently. May Ingram had great praise for the seaman who handled her lifeboat. “He swore like a good sailor, urged people to row and row better, and we all got along quite well,” she said; and Ralph Singleton felt his lifeboat was handled very skillfully in the open sea. Doris MacLeod said the sailor who was in charge of her boat was very good and everyone did what he said. Matilda Johnson thought the crew “worked hard and efficiently” or in Barbara Rodman’s words, with “amazing efficiency.” Dr. John Lawrence gave special praise for Chief Officer Copland, for whom he had great respect. Elnetta MacDonald gave great credit to nurse Campbell and Mary Levine to Stewardess Johnstone.9 Clearly attitudes toward the Athenia and her crew varied with personal experience.
For the women and children and older men in the lifeboats, it was a very traumatic experience. As the waves increased during the night to between six and ten feet, many boats shipped some water. If people were not wet enough, the boats were also hit by brief rainsqualls. Edith Bridge remembered that after it started to rain efforts were made to use the boat cover for some protection, but by the time the cover was dug out the rain stopped. No one was really dressed for these conditions. “Some people were practically without clothing, others wore light summer dresses with no coat, a few of us had light coats,” Dr. Lulu Sweigard remembered. “The chill crept deeper and deeper into our bones,” she said. Bernice Jansen did not remember much of her experience in the boat. As she was wet and exhausted from falling in the sea, someone put a coat over her. James Goodson, soaked from his swim to the boat, attempted to warm up by sharing a blanket with two scantily clad college girls, but rowing actually proved a more practical way to get his blood circulating. The college girls tried to lift everyone’s spirits by singing school songs. Goodson thought they were “simply grand.” George Calder got his wife and seven-year-old son on board the lifeboat and helped with rowing the boat for about six hours. He remembered that he was “physically and emotionally exhausted.” Jeannette Jordan thought everyone in her boat was exhausted. Although the children slept and several adults were hysterical, most of them sat silent and motionless with their chins on their lifejackets. “All were wretchedly seasick,” she said. Three-year-old Rosemary Cass-Beggs remembered sitting in the bow of the boat, calling out for her mother until Mrs. McMillan Wallace came forward and picked her up, covering her up with a blanket. She was puzzled by the strange sensation of being sick without having a stomachache. “She never cried,” Mrs. Wallace said; Rosemary sang herself a song and went to sleep. Ruby Mitchell, dressed only in her silk pajamas, was cold, wet, and covered in oil, but she was comforted by a woman who took the young girl on her lap and sheltered her in her coat. “Ruby, you’ve got to stay awake,” the woman urged, and the tired little girl replied, “Yes I will, I will.”10
Although the night was not stormy, the six- to ten-foot waves created a lot of motion for the lifeboats. Judith Evelyn commented that not only was almost everyone seasick, but that when the boat lurched and twisted in the swells many of the women also screamed in fright. The children in her boat, some dressed only in their nightclothes, whimpered and cried all night. Moreover there was a baby right at her feet and every time she attempted to move it the mother, lying sick on the bottom of the boat, clutched the child to her. “I can still feel that baby’s fingers every so often on my ankles,” Evelyn remembered. Dorothy Bulkley sat next to a woman who had a broken shoulder and her daughter who had a broken arm. Dorothy Dean sat near two “wonderful” Jewish refugee children from Austria who spent the night bailing and “not once did they complain.” Ellen Hutchinson, who had fallen on the ship and injured her back, said she had been thrown into her lifeboat. She spent the night on the bottom of the boat with two people on top of her. She was almost unconscious by the time they were rescued. Berta Rapp, a twenty-two-year-old Jewish refugee from Austria, did pass out in the boat and did not regain consciousness again until after she was rescued. Later on in the middle of the night the motor lifeboat went from boat to boat attempting to shift passengers from overloaded boats to those that had more space. Hugh Swindley helped a woman and her child shift to another boat, and he said a number of people left his boat at the same time.11 The people in the lifeboats were also given assurances that rescue ships had been reached by radio and that they would appear shortly. Those ship’s officers who had remained on the Athenia to look after the launching of lifeboats were also placed in various of the boats without an experienced person in charge.
The fact of war was not lost on those in the lifeboats either. After the first torpedo strike against the Athenia, the German submarine U-30 fired a second round of torpedoes, although one torpedo stuck temporarily in the submarine and the second ran wild on an erratic course without hitting the Athenia. The U-30 also remained in the area for some time. The survivors in the lifeboats could not be sure of what was happening, but they were aware of the submarine’s presence. Elizabeth Alton’s daughter had pointed out to her mother the smoke on the horizon, and when they were some distance away from the Athenia they were aware of something passing beneath them. “It caused the boat to vibrate,” Mrs. Alton said, “and we smelt a distinct odour of oil.” Edith Bridge heard a “swish in the water” and felt a vibration in her lifeboat also. Dorothy Dean and her mother, Amy, heard what they called a rumbling sound and felt something scrape along the bottom of their boat. Eva Blair remembered a “dull thud” along the bottom of her boat and they feared that they had struck a mine. However, they concluded that it had been a torpedo and that people in another boat had been thrown from their seats by the turbulence in the water. At what he thought was 2 a.m. Douglas Stewart also heard a humming sound and felt something scraping along the bottom of the lifeboat. Somewhat later he was sure the submarine surfaced. Don Gifford thought there had been an explosion underwater about an hour and a half after the Athenia was first hit. This shook the boat slightly, but did not threaten to overturn it. Barbara Rodman feared that the explosion she felt would shatter her lifeboat.12
Many people reported that there had been another explosion, heard or felt, while they were in the boats. Several people saw what must have been the U-30’s periscope also. Ten-year-old Alexander Lamont saw what he described as “black and rusty looking with a black pipe sticking above the rusty black metal” moving rapidly through the water toward the lifeboat. “I yelled, ‘There is something coming! Behind us!’” The Athenia sailor steering the lifeboat called out, “It’s the bloody U-boat.” Florence Davis remembered what she described as “a stick above the surface of the water.” Hessie Hislop saw “a long thin pole, probably a periscope,” about eight hundred yards away, and it seemed to her that there was a second explosion somewhere under the lifeboat. The thirteen-year-old daughter of Joseph Insch saw “a pipe sticking up through the water and moving along quite rapidly.”13 When Ruth Rabenold saw “a metal rod” sticking out of the sea she concluded that the explosion on the Athenia had indeed been caused by a submarine. Frances Shoen said that the periscope passed only a few yards from her boat and was visible for some time. Norman Hanna saw a periscope about ten feet away from his boat, after they got some distance from the Athenia, and he said a cable on the submarine caught the bottom of the lifeboat and almost upset it. Charles O. Bowen of Vancouver later told newspaper reporters, “the submarine came up under us and tried to upset No. 1 and No. 4 lifeboats,” and he also claimed that it fired at the Athenia. Several weeks later when questions arose as to whether the Athenia could have been sunk by a submarine, Caroline Stuart of Plainfield, New Jersey, wrote to the State Department to say that she had seen a submarine periscope and she knew what one was. She asserted, “my father built submarines for Russia in the Russo-Japanese War and so I have always known what a periscope was.”14 Clearly the U-30 was maneuvering to inspect the ship, but whether the sensations observed in the lifeboats were caused by the submarine passing beneath them or by the last torpedo is impossible to determine.
Some time after midnight people in the lifeboats began to see lights on the horizon. It was the Norwegian freighter Knute Nelson, which had been sailing from Oslo bound for the Panama Canal and had earlier on Sunday seen the U-30. The ship picked up the SOS radio messages from the Athenia at about 8:45 in the evening and signaled back, “THE OLD MAN DOESN’T BELIEVE YOU’VE BEEN TORPEDOED—BUT HE’S COMING TO YOUR ASSISTANCE ANYWAY.” Captain Carl J. Andersson calculated that he was about forty-five miles south of the Athenia and he altered course and turned his ship around to respond. The Knute Nelson was a 435-foot (132.58-meter) freighter, built in Odense, Denmark, in 1926 for the Fred. Olsen & Company steamship line operating out of Oslo. All hands went to work to get the lifeboats and ladders put out and the ship made ready. But they were still a long way away and moving at only fourteen knots.15
“Ye don’t think we can be saved?” an elderly Scottish woman asked Professor Stork. “We’re practically saved already,” he replied with cheery confidence. “I say it and I don’t dare not think it,” he reflected to himself rather less boldly. Nevertheless, the twinkling lights of the Knute Nelson looked like those of a fairy castle to Barbara Bailey. Elwood MacPherson was standing in his boat at an oar when they started rowing toward the Knute Nelson at about 12:30 a.m. However, it was not until nearly 2:30 in the morning that they got close to the ship and then slipped right past it. By great effort, “with hard rowing on bended oars,” they got their boat turned around and brought along the lee side of the freighter. The ship was in ballast, riding very high, so that the deck towered at least fifteen to twenty feet above the surface of the water. Boatswain’s chairs were lowered over the side to the lifeboats to hoist up the women and children. The younger passengers climbed up a rope ladder and finally MacPherson and the three crewmembers followed. Safe at last, but for the first time he could not breathe and thought he would collapse. Despite the rope burns on his hands, Reverend Hutchinson decided to climb up the rope ladder, although the sight of the person ahead of him struggling to hold on was unnerving. Young Donald Wilcox remembered the lifeboat rising and falling in the water alongside the ship and being told to wait until the boat surged upward before reaching out to the cargo net that he was to scramble up. It was difficult to get a grip on the netting and everyone scraped their hands and knees, he said. However, as they got close to the deck the strong arms of the crewmembers lifted them on board.16
Other boats gathered alongside, waiting. Eva Blair was hoisted up in a boatswain’s chair, but “with the first upward heave, my body was dangling in midair!” Fearing that she would fall to her death between the ship and the lifeboat, she was convinced that “only super-human strength enabled me to hang on to the main rope.” Something very nearly like that happened to Lady Dorothy, the wife of Sir Richard Lake. While being hoisted up from the lifeboat in a boatswain’s chair her hands slipped from the rope and she fell backward. Fortunately her legs caught in the ropes on either side of the wooden seat and she was suspended upside down along the side of the ship, her skirts falling over her head. A crewmember clambered over the side and got a firm hold on her ankles while she was carefully eased up onto the deck. With incredible aplomb, Lady Dorothy straightened herself up, smoothed her skirts, and said, “Whew! That was a close one! If I had fallen into the boat, I would have killed them!!” By the time Barbara Bailey’s boat came alongside, the Knute Nelson’s accommodation ladder had been lowered, but the platform was still about six feet above the lifeboat. She was more or less thrown by three men to a Norwegian sailor on the platform and then made her way up the steps.17
Captain Andersson and his crew worked to accommodate over four hundred passengers and crew of the Athenia. The staterooms and salons for officers and crew were given over to the survivors and the shelter deck was made as accommodating as possible. The survivors were hoisted on board, their lifejackets cut off, and they were given something to eat or drink. Eva Blair was led directly to the galley where she was given some beef tea. Barbara Bailey was given some gin, which she in turn brought to an Athenia crewman who had been scalded in the explosion and was near death, she thought. Elwood MacPherson gave his raincoat to a wet, shivering Jewish mother and his clan MacPherson blanket to her two children. Blankets were provided to many who were dressed only in their nightclothes or underwear. Dr. Altschul and his wife slept on the floor of the captain’s cabin using lifejackets as cushions. Captain Andersson was sometimes described as elderly and rather gruff. James Goodson saw the somewhat amazed and compassionate Norwegian captain telling the several college girls to “Go down! Down! Any door! Any room! Warm! You must have warm!” Their solution was to climb into the warm beds of the Norwegian sailors. Warmth and a place to collapse was what most people needed. Survivors squeezed into all the available spaces on the ship, from the captain’s bathtub to various cargo holds. Many would have joined Margaret Ford’s grateful statement of “how very fine the captain, officers, and crew of the Knute Nelson were to us.” Night gave way to dawn about 6:00 a.m. while many of the survivors dozed fitfully, still not able to either relax or find comfort. Tea and hardtack and soup were served from the ship’s limited stores, and mugs were “re-cycled” as quickly as they were emptied without worrying about washing. Dry clothing was given to people, but coats were also made out of canvas sacks and slippers out of odd bits of cloth. Dr. Edward Wilkes, who had lost his wife and as far as he knew both of his sons, was the only physician on the ship who could speak English and went around patiently applying first aid to people with cuts, bruises, and burns. With the assistance of one of the Athenia’s stewardesses, Dr. Wilkes shaved the scalp of Bernice Jensen and gave her eight stitches for a cut she sustained when she slipped into the sea while descending to her lifeboat. Benzene was used to clean off the fuel oil that had covered her when she was in the water. Ten people were badly injured, with burns, fractures, and deep wounds being the worst. Captain Cook, the chief engineer, and the second engineer came on board the Knute Nelson also and attempted to assess what had happened. Four hundred thirty survivors were brought on board the Knute Nelson.18
While the appearance of the Knute Nelson within a few hours of the orders to abandon the Athenia was almost a miracle, a terrible tragedy occurred during the rescue that significantly expanded the number of deaths in the overall calamity. Sometime after 2:00 a.m. on Monday morning, while it was still dark, there were as many as six boats clustered along the starboard side of the ship. Lifeboat No. 4 came alongside and lines were seized, although sailors on the Knute Nelson waved them off. With the seas now reaching ten feet, the lifeboat was difficult to manage and drifted toward the stern of the freighter into the wash of the huge propeller. Because the Knute Nelson was empty and riding very high in the water the propeller broke the surface when it turned. Douglas and William Stewart, who were pulling on the same oar, realized that the lifeboat was going to be drawn right into the propeller. They pushed the blade of their oar against the hull of the Knute Nelson, and although “the oar bent in an arch till we thought it would break, . . . it held, and we cleared the propeller blades by a mere foot and a half.” Patricia Hale and Margaret Patch were also rowing as hard as they could in lifeboat No. 4. “For one awful moment the stern seemed about to come right down on us,” Hale remembered.19 Quartermaster Dillon also brought lifeboat No. 5A alongside the Knute Nelson, well back toward the stern. A line had been passed to 5A to keep the boat from drifting away. However, when the engine of the Knute Nelson was turned on and the vessel moved forward, the line parted and 5A drifted under the stern counter of the ship. Efforts to fend the boat off the side of the ship with oars were unsuccessful. Dillon’s boat was drawn right to the huge propeller, which sheared through the bottom of the boat at the keel, slicing through the planking and shattering the craft. Andrew Allan, who saw the man sitting on the thwart in front of him cut in half by the propeller, turned and plunged into the sea. “Got to get away from the blades,” he told himself. It seemed an eternity until he reached the surface of what he remembered as a “churning red sea” and could breathe again.20 Judith Evelyn, in the opposite end of the boat sitting next to Reverend Allan, Andrew’s father, was unaware of what was happening and suddenly found herself in the sea with saltwater in her mouth and nose. Allan’s father was never seen again. The wreckage of the boat capsized, turning some seventy people into the water.
James Goodson in one of the other six boats alongside the Knute Nelson saw the whole tragedy unfold and called to the helmsman in his boat to steer for those in the water. The strongest swimmers made for the ladders along the side of the ship or for Goodson’s boat and were pulled in. George McMillan, assistant pantryman on the Athenia, saw several Norwegian sailors rescue a number of people from the sea, even by climbing down onto the rudder of the Knute Nelson to do so, but many people just slipped underwater in the darkness. Thomas G. Fielder, of Orono, Maine, and his cabin mate John Bernard were thrown into the water but managed to grab hold of some floating wreckage and were joined by several others. Fielder’s water-filled wristwatch stopped at 2:50 a.m. They drifted away from the Knute Nelson for some time and were picked up by lifeboat No. 8. Quartermaster Dillon shouted to those in the water to “hang on to the boat.” Two of the Texas college girls, Louise and Catherine Mackay, were able to cling to the wreckage. Allan and a steward turned a section of the boat upside down in order to trap air underneath and then climbed up on this frail craft. Although buoyed up by her lifejacket, Judith Evelyn in her heavy, wet fur coat slid underwater several times before she called out “Andrew,” for the second time that evening. Miraculously he answered “Judith,” as he had in the darkened dining room, and she was pulled up across from him on the upturned boat. All the while they drifted away from the Knute Nelson into the dark.21
Coming up out of the night, shortly behind the Knute Nelson, was the yacht Southern Cross, owned by the Swedish millionaire industrialist Axel Wenner-Gren and his American wife, the former Marguerite Gautier. His great fortune was derived largely from the success of the Electrolux vacuum cleaner manufacturing company, but also from his interests in SAAB and the Bofors gun patents in Sweden. Wenner-Gren became increasingly regarded with suspicion by the Allies during the war. His links with Herman Goering and the Duke of Windsor were compromising. However, none of these considerations diminished the generosity of Wenner-Gren and his crew in rescuing the Athenia survivors. The Southern Cross, previously owned by Howard Hughes, was one of the largest and most luxurious private yachts in the world. The yacht had been built in Glasgow in 1930, displaced 1,851 tons, and its waterline length was 266 feet (81 meters), but its dramatic counter stern and clipper bow, together with a substantial bowsprit, made its overall length even greater, 320.5 feet (97.6 meters). Painted a brilliant white and with gleaming brass trim and varnished woodwork, the Southern Cross was a striking vessel. She carried a complement of five officers and thirty-four uniformed crewmembers. The Southern Cross had left Norway on 31 August and was bound for the Bahamas when she picked up the distress signal from the Athenia at about nine o’clock.
Seaman R. Grant brought his boat, 14A, alongside the Southern Cross about 2:30 in the morning, followed shortly by 15A, commanded by Cadet J. T. Donald. With a powerful spotlight on his vessel, and assisted by flares fired periodically from the lifeboats, Captain Karl A. Sjodahl and Chief Officer Hjalmar Rothman of the Southern Cross assessed the dispersal of the lifeboats and positioned the yacht so as to pick up boats that could not reach the Knute Nelson or had drifted past her. John Coullie remembered rowing toward a spotlight shining on a lifeboat being picked up. A flare was lit in his boat and the spotlight was directed to them. The Southern Cross came alongside, “and we were pulled up one by one and the lifeboat was left to drift away.” An exhausted Gustav Anderson heard someone in his boat ask what they should do if the rescue vessel were a German ship. Anderson was “glad to be rescued by anyone,” but he also recognized the large blue-and-white Swedish flag draped over the side of the boat.22 The fact that the sides of the yacht were lower than those of the Knute Nelson was reassuring to Patricia Hale, exhausted from rowing; the problem of getting up from the lifeboat was eased further by the rope nooses that were fitted under survivors’ arms to hoist them up. Babies and small children were carried up by the Swedish sailors, some by their clothing held in the sailors’ teeth. When a relieved Dorothy Dean reached the deck Mrs. Wenner-Gren cried out, “She must be English, my God she’s smiling”; but some women also collapsed when they finally got on deck. DeWitt Smith climbed aboard the Southern Cross just as the sun was coming up. He had been in boat 11A, which had been damaged while being launched from the Athenia and had leaked badly all night. The bailing stopped as the survivors reached the Southern Cross and Smith observed that the boat sank as the last passengers got out.23 Survivors were taken on board until between six-thirty and seven o’clock in the morning of 4 September.
The Southern Cross too had a disaster with one lifeboat. At about five in the morning, while it was still dark, Able Seaman W. J. Macintosh found his boat, No. 8, on the weather side of the Southern Cross. He was unable to bring the boat around the bow of the yacht to the lee side where the survivors were being taken on board, so he reversed course and attempted to steer the boat around the stern. It was important that the boat be kept clear of the Southern Cross, especially as it passed around the yacht’s overhanging counter that extended several feet beyond the waterline. However, many of those at the oars in the boat did not understand English and were in fact anxious to get as close to the yacht as possible—one person actually seized a line hanging from the Southern Cross and attempted to climb up it. Therefore despite Macintosh’s efforts to push the boat away with an oar, the boat, being tossed by what were now ten-foot waves, slid irreversibly under the projecting stern of the Southern Cross. In an instant the boat, surging upward on the crest of a wave, hit the counter of the yacht on a descending roll and was capsized, turning Macintosh and all of the passengers into the sea. The Gillespie family were caught when the boat went over, but fortunately they could swim. Scotty Gillespie was tangled in ropes and hit by the gunwale, although he managed to free himself and climb onto the exposed bottom of the boat. James Gillespie was trapped for a moment under the boat and was hit on the head, but he made his way out and was pulled into another lifeboat. Mrs. Gillespie, who said she “thought this was the end of it,” pulled herself onto a raft that was floating nearby. One of the members of the crew pulled people onto the upturned boat. Sailors from the Southern Cross quickly got into one of the empty Athenia lifeboats alongside and pushed off into the sea to rescue people struggling in the water. Thomas Fielder, thrown into the sea now for the second time, swam to a swamped lifeboat along with several others and was rescued by sailors from the Southern Cross. His cabin mate, John Bernard, however, slipped away this time. Nicola, the infant daughter of the film director Ernst Lubitsch, was kept above water by her nurse Carlina Strohmayer until they were both rescued. Some of the sailors plunged into the sea also. Montgomery Evans saw one of the sailors in the water holding a child by its clothing, “like a cat with a kitten.”24 What must have been at least fifty or sixty people were saved, but it is estimated that about six were lost.
Ruby Mitchell saw the disaster with the lifeboat just in front of them, but their own boat was brought alongside the yacht and made fast. She remembered being thrown upward from the lifeboat by one sailor and being caught by another on the deck of the Southern Cross. She was then taken inside the yacht to warm up and given some hot soup. Then she was made to get out of her wet pajamas and provided with a shirt by one of the crew. This shirt she wore for the rest of her adventure across the Atlantic.25
As with the Knute Nelson, not all of the remaining lifeboats were physically able to get to the Southern Cross. Helen Hannay said that they were too exhausted to row to the Southern Cross and drifted past her in the night. Joseph Insch said his boat rowed toward the yacht and got within thirty yards but could get no closer. They hailed the yacht, but of course the crew were working to get people in lifeboats alongside up onto the deck. Even the wreck of the ill-fated 5A was caught in the Southern Cross’s searchlight but drifted by, upturned and with Quartermaster Dillon, Judith Evelyn, Andrew Allan, and several others clinging to it, but there was no help for them.26
Once on board the Athenia survivors were graciously treated by the owners and crew of the Southern Cross. Rev. Dr. G. P. Woollcombe was taken directly to an officer’s cabin, given a “tot” of gin, and put to bed, where he promptly fell asleep. Dorothy Dean and her mother found space in the salon under a grand piano, where they were served soup and cheese sandwiches. Montgomery Evans was given sandwiches by a Japanese steward, offered brandy, and then led to a wood-paneled library, which reminded him, rather painfully, of the book collection he had been transporting back to the United States that was now doomed in the cargo hold of the Athenia. Evans dozed on the floor until roused to be given bouillon and coffee. “We were in a dreadful state,” John Coullie wrote, “but they gave us some hot soup and blankets so we just lay on the floor exhausted after nine hours in the lifeboat.” People were crowded everywhere on the yacht, in every cabin, along the decks, and on the stairways. Babies and children were put in one room. A frantic Mrs. Gillespie was told that two young boys who had been pulled out of the water were sleeping below decks; they turned out to be her sons, Scotty and James. Axel Wenner-Gren attempted to provide clothing to those survivors who had been dressed only in their nightclothes or who had discarded some apparel while in the water. Dr. Louis Burns of Philadelphia gave first aid to those who were injured, including several of the Swedish sailors who had injured themselves rescuing survivors from the upturned lifeboat.27 Once on board the Southern Cross many anxious and distraught survivors, in a state of shock really, worried about the fate of missing members of their families.
Altogether 376 survivors were brought on board the Swedish yacht. Everyone was grateful to get out of the lifeboats, not to mention to have escaped the stricken Athenia. Although the Southern Cross was an exceptionally large steam yacht, it did not really have facilities for all of these people. The arrival of other rescue vessels—three Royal Navy destroyers and the American freighter City of Flint—allowed the survivors to be transferred. Those who went to the destroyers were brought to Scotland and those who chose to go to the City of Flint were taken across the Atlantic to Halifax. The tremendous efforts of Mr. and Mrs. Wenner-Gren and the crew of the Southern Cross, a private yacht, were particularly appreciated. George Calder wrote in his deposition to the Department of State in December, “I feel strongly that enough credit has not been given to the owner, Mr. Wenner-Gren, of the ‘Southern Cross’, and its officers and crew, for all their unselfishness and untiring efforts for our comfort.” In his deposition, also in December, H. DeWitt Smith said that he had written to Rear Adm. Emory B. Land, chairman of the U.S. Maritime Commission, “in praise of the officers and crew of the ‘Southern Cross.’”28
During the course of the night of 3 September, three 1,375-ton Royal Navy Escapade-class destroyers were detached from screening HMS Renown while proceeding to Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands, north of Scotland. On HMS Electra the starboard watch had just been piped to “cruising stations” when signal lamps flashed the orders to make all speed to assist the Athenia’s distress call. Electra had been built by R. & W. Hawthorne Leslie and Company of Newcastle upon Tyne in 1934, was 329 feet (100 meters) in length, was capable of speeds of between thirty-six and thirty-eight knots, and carried a main battery of four 4.7-inch guns. Her captain was Lieutenant Commander S. A. “Sammy” Buss, who led the ship with distinction in the war, escorting HMS Hood and Prince of Wales in the search for the Bismarck and rescuing the three survivors of the Hood, and escorting HMS Prince of Wales and Repulse to Singapore in December of 1941, only to be lost in the Battle of the Java Sea on 27 February 1942. Electra was joined on the night of 3–4 September by HMS Escort, commanded by Lieutenant Commander J. Bostock, who was later awarded the Distinguished Service Cross. Escort was built by Scotts Shipbuilding & Engineering Company in Greenock, launched on 29 March 1934, later torpedoed in the western Mediterranean, and sunk while being towed to Gibraltar on 11 July 1940. Later HMS Fame arrived and provided protection against submarines. Led by Commander P. N. Walter, Fame had been built by Vickers-Armstrong in Newcastle and launched on 28 June 1934. Sometime after seven in the morning Fame picked up distress signals from the SS Blairlogie, a freighter some 140 miles farther south and left to provide assistance. Steaming at about twenty-five knots for some 240 nautical miles, the Electra went to “Action Stations” at 4:00 a.m. Cargo nets and ladders were made ready. By first light the shape of the Athenia could be made out on the horizon and by 4:35 a.m. lifeboats, wreckage, and people in lifebelts could be seen.29
HMS Electra first undertook an antisubmarine patrol around the Athenia and the lifeboats, and HMS Escort, using her searchlights, began looking for Athenia lifeboats. Barbara Rodman remembered drifting for hours after having been so close to Knute Nelson that they feared they might be hit by it, and then “suddenly a warship appeared out of the darkness and the Escort pulled alongside our boat and rescued us.” Mary Dick thought she was brought on board Escort as early as four in the morning. Margaret McPherson and her daughter Fione were taken by the sailors to the torpedo room. There she was reunited with her second daughter who had been looked after by a playmate’s father. To Professor Charles Wharton Stork this was “the most terrifying experience of the night.” The waves by this time were between eight to ten feet in height and the up-and-down motions were exaggerated when the lifeboat came alongside the ship. Even then it was at least ten feet to the deck of the destroyer. Sixty-two-year-old Helen Edna Campbell saw the “tall, grim, dark, wall of the destroyer” and thought she might faint, and when the first woman up the ladder fell back into the boat and broke her leg, she was certain she could never make it. But a sailor said to her, “Here you, put your hands on that ladder and hang your weight on them.” He shouted, “Don’t you dare let go,” as she was hoisted up to the deck.30 Ropes and rope ladders were put over the side for the men to climb. Later women were hoisted up by a noose that was placed around them, and children were carried in the arms of the sailors. The officers urged everyone to be careful and take their time, and the boats were emptied in about fifteen minutes, but there were some accidents.
The most dramatic rescue by Escort was without doubt that of the shattered and overturned boat of Quartermaster Dillon, 5A, that had been smashed by the Knute Nelson’s propeller. Twenty or so people had managed to cling to the keel and the ridges of the strakes that made up the hull of the boat, but they were constantly swept by waves that washed them back into the sea. The boat drifted past the Southern Cross and fell momentarily into the beam of its searchlight and was then swallowed up by the night again. One by one people slid off the boat and disappeared. Judith Evelyn and a man next to her helped for the second time pull a woman with long black hair back to the boat. The woman said “thank you,” and Evelyn, hovering on despair, wondered to herself, “for what?” As the gray dawn began to break an object gradually took shape near them and a searchlight again caught them in its beam. Evelyn could just make out “H-66” on the side and realized that this was a naval vessel. Escort came alongside the overturned boat, put ladders over the side, and lowered one of its own boats to get sailors onto the water’s surface. Helped by Andrew Allan, but weighted down by her water-logged fur coat, Evelyn managed to get to the ladder. She was so weak that she could not lift her arms or take a step and was in danger of falling back into the water when sailors grabbed her lifejacket and hoisted her onto the deck. Allan followed, wrapping ropes around his hand so that he would not let go. But few were left. In addition to Evelyn and Allan, only Quartermaster Dillon, one steward, two stewardesses, and perhaps three passengers were all who remained to be saved on the wreckage of boat No. 5A. “I clung on to the overturned lifeboat for about three hours before being rescued,” recalled Catherine Mackay. Lieutenant Commander Bostock of the Escort reported they had picked up about two hundred survivors, although a number of corpses were seen in the water and three people died after being brought on board.31
On the decks of HMS Escort survivors stood about exhausted, artificial respiration was given to several people, and Dr. Lawrence provided first aid to people from the Athenia and Escort alike. The elderly man that Judith Evelyn and Andrew Allan had kept alive on the lifeboat died on board the destroyer. Sailors cut off Evelyn’s lifejacket and took her in out of the cold to help her out of her wet clothes. Her hands were so stiff that she could not manage the buttons, so a sailor just ripped off her dress; when she was covered by a blanket, the rest of her undergarments were taken off as well. A sailor then picked her up and carried her to the officers’ quarters where she had something to drink and tried to sleep. However, other women and infants were also brought into the room, and while still icy cold herself Evelyn attempted to warm a baby. The officers’ steward worked tirelessly to provide them with food and tea, to find some new clothes, and to dry their wet garments. When at last they were able, Evelyn and Allan tried to come to grips with the fact that Andrew’s father had been lost. Helen Edna Campbell was shown to a couch were she sat with an American girl. The two just cried and, although they were still seasick, they then fell asleep. Thomas Finley Jr. was the last to be rescued by the Escort at about 7:30 in the morning. When he got on board he found his wife, who had been picked up from another boat earlier in the morning. For the crew he had nothing but praise. “The crew gave clothing and turned over their sleeping quarters to the survivors with complete generosity,” he said. Alma Bloom felt the same. She was brought tea and blankets and looked after for twenty-four hours. “Never have I seen such consideration, thoughtfulness, and kindness as every member of the crew displayed,” she gratefully acknowledged. “Thank God for the British Navy!,” Campbell later wrote.32
HMS Fame arrived at about 7:00 a.m. and took over the antisubmarine patrol, allowing HMS Electra to begin approaching the lifeboats as some light began to appear in the sky. Electra continued to pick up people until perhaps as late as 10:00 a.m. It seemed “rather problematical” to Herbert Spiegelberg how a rescue could be made with the seas running as high as they were. It looked certain that the lifeboats would be smashed against the side of the destroyer. However, just as they came alongside, cushioned fenders made of oakum were put over the side against which the boat could rub harmlessly. A perilous rope ladder was then put down. This too looked dubious until two sailors jumped over the side of the ship on each side of the ladder, holding onto the railing with one hand and resting one foot on the ladder. As the lifeboat rose on the crest of a wave, they reached down into the boat and picked up a passenger by the arms and lifted that person onto the ladder, where other sailors on deck could take hold and pull the survivor the rest of the way. Women, children, and men all worked their way up from the boat and onto the Electra, “without one single hitch.” As Spiegelberg said, it was “not always a very dignified sight, but still an admirable performance.” Late in the morning Chief Officer Copland finally brought boat No. 14A up to the Electra. Although it had not leaked, it was riding very low in the water with only three strakes of its planking providing freeboard. This boat carried 105 passengers, most of them children, and very few men who could row. Copland had kept the boat heading into the wind and riding rather comfortably with a sea anchor, and he had tried to protect the passengers by covering them as best he could with the canvas boat cover; but with the rising wind and waves it was critical to get them on the destroyer. These young survivors were among the 238 hoisted aboard by the Electra’s sailors.33
All these people were particularly cold, hungry, and exhausted, having been in the lifeboats for between eight and twelve hours. Spiegelberg was grateful for the “charming if austere hospitality” of the destroyer and praised the sailors for the food and warmth they provided. He thought that the sailors’ hammocks were the perfect way to restore one’s balance after hours in a tossing lifeboat. Mrs. Ellen Hutchinson, who was almost unconscious in the boat, had little recollection of getting on the Electra, but she said that words “can not describe how good the men on the destroyer were to me and to everybody.” Mrs. Kate Hinds also had praise for the Electra, “whose men fed, washed and gave up their hammocks for us and showed us every courtesy”; and Elnetta MacDonald said the sailors were “the finest boys I have ever known.” Perhaps the most knowledgeable tribute to the British sailors came from the American marine engineer returning to the United States on the Athenia: “As a seaman, I cannot find language sufficient to give due praise to the men of His Majesty’s Navy. They took the best possible care of all survivors who could possibly be picked up by them.”34
Before Chief Officer Copland could eat or take his rest, he consulted with the Athenia’s doctor, who was on the Electra. They concluded that despite specific instructions the previous night on the Athenia—that Mrs. Rose Griffin be sought out in the infirmary and placed in a lifeboat—it now transpired that this had not been done. Mrs. Griffin had hit her head in a fall on Saturday and had been unconscious in the Athenia infirmary when the ship was torpedoed. Copland and two of his crewmen, Boatswain William Harvey and Able Bodied Seaman McLeod, returned to the Athenia sometime around ten o’clock on Monday morning. Electra provided her motor whaleboat and four sailors, led by Midshipman Cecil Bryden Chilton. The ship was then some distance away, had a 30-degree list to port, was down at the stern, and was riding low in the water, but they brought the whaleboat alongside. Copland and his crew went on board and made their way to the infirmary, where water now covered the floor. There indeed they found Mrs. Griffin in bed, still unconscious, and carried her back to the lifeboat. Chief Officer Copland then made a quick fifteen-minute inspection of the Athenia in the light of day to see if it might still be possible to save the ship. His conclusion, however, was that the amount of water in the ship and the concentration of flooding in the stern half of the ship indicated that “it would not last much longer.” Copland and his crewmen returned to the Electra with Mrs. Griffin. The chief officer reported to Lieutenant Commander S. A. Buss on the bridge of the Electra that he found the Athenia beyond saving. It was about eleven o’clock on Monday morning, 4 September 1939. Just then, while the officers were talking, they could see the Athenia heel over on her port beam. Her bow rose almost straight up out of the water, showing her bright bottom paint with water streaming off. Almost in slow motion, the Athenia then settled stern first into the sea.35