Sinking of Athenia

3 September 1939, North-west of Ireland

German success; the liner Athenia sunk on the first day of the war

Britain declared war on Germany on the morning of 3 September 1939. That evening, north-west of Ireland, Fritz-Julius Lemp in U-30 sighted the liner Athenia, blacked out and zigzagging, took her for an armed merchant cruiser and fired two torpedoes. She was carrying more than 1,100 passengers to Montreal, among them Jewish refugees and some 300 Americans. She sank the next morning; 117 people died. The destroyers Electra, Escort and Fame and three merchant ships took off the rest. Hitler had ordered liners to be spared. Germany denied the sinking and claimed that Churchill had put a bomb aboard to drag the United States into the war, and the page of U-30's log was rewritten. Britain took it as the start of unrestricted submarine warfare and began sailing ships in convoy at once.