SHIP’S TELEGRAPH MARITIME NEWS FROM AROUND THE PORT OF LYTTELTON Editor – Clive Keightley PO Box 123 Lyttelton 8841 New Zealand Phone (03) 3288954 Mobile 0276664343 Email [email protected] Newsletter Number 5/18 1 September 2018 FROM THE EDITOR’S DESK In my last Edition of Ship’s Telegraph this section was longer than usual. Because this Edition is all about Merchant Navy Day it is again going to be longer than normal. On 3 September 2018 it will be Merchant Navy Day which is commemorated each year, being the anniversary of the sinking of ss Athenia which was the first Allied Merchant Ship to be sunk by Germany during World War 2. The Athenia was a steam turbine transatlantic passenger liner built in Glasgow in 1923 for the Anchor Donaldson Line. She worked between the United Kingdom and the east coast of Page 1 of 12 Canada until September 1939, when a torpedo from a German submarine sank her in the Western Approaches. On 1 September 1939 Athenia, commanded by Captain James Cook, left Glasgow for Montreal via Liverpool and Belfast. She carried 1,103 passengers, including about 500 Jewish refugees, 469 Canadians, 311 US citizens, 72 UK subjects and 315 crew. She departed Liverpool at 1300 hours on 2 September and on the evening of 3 September was 60 nautical miles northwest of Inishtrahull, Ireland when she was sighted by the German submarine U30 commanded by Oberleutnant Fritz-Julius Lemp around 1630 hours. Lemp later claimed that the fact that she was a darkened ship steering a zigzag course which seemed to be well off the normal shipping routes made him believe she was either a troopship, a Q ship or an armed merchant cruiser. Lemp fired two torpedoes, one exploded on Athenia’s port side in her engine room, and she began to settle by the stern. Athenia remained afloat for more than 14 hours, until she finally sank stern first at 1040 hours the next morning. Of the 1418 aboard, 98 passengers and 19 crew members were killed. As Athenia was an unarmed passenger ship, the attack violated the Hague Conventions and the London Naval Treaty of 1930 that allowed all warships, including submarines, to stop and search Merchant Vessels, but forbade capture as prize or sinking unless the ship was carrying contraband or engaged in military activity. Even if this was the case, and it was decided to sink their ship, it was required that passengers and crew must be transferred to a “place of safety” as a priority. Although Germany had not signed the 1930 treaty, the German 1936 Prize Rules binding their naval commanders copied most of its restrictions. Lemp, the Commander of U30, did none of these things choosing instead to fire without warning. Athenia sinking by the stern Page 2 of 12 Lemp had made a shocking error in sinking the Athenia. In Germany, when Grand Admiral Raeder first heard of the sinking of the Athenia he made inquiries and was told that no U-boat was nearer than 75 miles to the location of the sinking. When on 27 September U30 returned to Wilhelmshaven, Lemp reported to Admiral Donitz that he had sunk the Athenia in error. Donitz sent Lemp to Berlin where he explained the incident to Raeder. In turn, Raeder reported to Hitler, who decided that the incident should be kept secret for political reasons. Raeder decided against court-martialling Lemp because he considered that he had made an understandable mistake and the log of the U30 was altered to sustain the official denials. It was not until the Nuremberg Trials that the truth of the U-boat sinking of SS Athenia finally came out. By the end of WW2 36,749 Commonwealth merchant seafarers had lost their lives mostly due to the sinking of Merchant Ships by German U-boats. Merchant Navy Day in New Zealand is a significant commemoration to honour the several thousand New Zealand seafarers who served under the British red ensign in both the First and Second World Wars. Some 70 are known to have lost their lives during WW1 and at least 140 during WW2, with a similar number taken prisoner. These civilian volunteers sailed ships delivering troops, military equipment and vital cargoes of food, fuel and raw materials. Many ships were torpedoed or bombed and survivors sometimes spent days or weeks in lifeboats before being rescued. In recent times these civilian volunteers have been given much more recognition for their contribution to the war effort and the Merchant Navy is now looked upon as the fourth service. As proof of this the Royal New Zealand Naval Association in Papanui have invited members of the Merchant Navy Association in Lyttelton to join their Organisation. Those of us who took up the offer have received a great welcome and have thoroughly enjoyed attending the various functions held at the Papanui RSA. While some people may criticize me for including the next section I think it is time to consider the tragedies and hardships of seafarers serving in the German Navy. In particular the German Submarine Service. They were not all fanatical Nazis but people serving in the German Navy who merely thought they were doing their duty for their country. They were all very young and many of them were still teenagers. The majority of Commanders of the U-boats ranged in age from early twenties to about thirty. Young men were enticed into the Kriegsmarine, the name of the German Navy from 1935 to 1945, with advertisements portraying the glamour of the submarine arm’s success being the main appeal. Crews on the U-boats received extra bonuses and were provided with special facilities for relaxing after each patrol. Contrary to Allied wartime propaganda that portrayed U-boat captains and crews as war criminals who gloatingly machine-gunned helpless merchant sailors, atrocities Page 3 of 12 had in fact been extremely rare in WW2. In the early years of the war U-boat crews often actually helped their victims. Otto Kretschmer, Commander of U99, in an interview which can be seen on YouTube, made a point of saying that he only wanted to sink the ships and do all he could to save the crews and help the survivors. This attitude all came to an end when in 1942 Captain Hartenstein torpedoed the British troopship Laconia. Hartenstein did all he could to rescue survivors from the Laconia who were a mixture of nationalities consisting of British servicemen and civilians, Italian and Polish. It was impossible to accommodate them all inside the submarine so some remained on deck while others stayed in their lifeboats which were secured to the U-boat. He called for help from any ship or other U-Boat which could take some of the survivors as he could not cope with such large numbers of people. However, before all the survivors were taken off a four-engine B- 24 Liberator bomber with American markings approached the U-boat and lifeboats. Although the pilot was aware that these people were survivors he went ahead and dropped bombs on the submarine and lifeboats killing many people. Women and children were screaming and the U-boat badly damaged, Hartenstein was forced to break off the rescue and head for his home base. Apparently the USAAF antisubmarine base on Ascension Island ordered the pilot to carry out the attack anyway, on the grounds the U-boat remained a danger to ships in the area. Karl Donitz, the German Commander of the whole U-boat fleet, then gave the order to all U-boats “All attempts to rescue the crews of sunken ships will cease forthwith”. U-Boat Memorial containing all the names of German Navy Personnel who were killed on U-Boats Page 4 of 12 The number of U-boats lost in WW1 was 200 and in WW2 739. Between 1914 and 1918 4,700 men serving on U-boats were killed and between 1939 and 1945 30,0026 men were killed. Two U-boat Commanders stand out above the rest, Otto Kretschmer and Erich Topp. They were both highly intelligent and well educated. Kretschmer’s U99 was depth charged in 1941 and he was forced to abandon his U-boat. He was rescued from the icy water by HMS Walker and taken prisoner. Kretschmer hardly fitted the British captors’ image of a U-boat Commander. Instead of a fanatical Nazi, they found a quiet-voiced, polite, unpolitical, professional officer who spoke good English and was quick to congratulate the Walker’s Captain on his success. Erich Topp was one of the relatively few U-boat men to survive WW2. Otto Kretschmer spent almost seven years as a prisoner of war and in 1947 he was allowed to return to Germany. He joined the newly formed West German Navy (Bundesmarine) in 1955 and eventually promoted to the rank of Flotilla Admiral in 1965. From 1962 he served as a staff officer in NATO before becoming Chief of Staff of the NATO command Comnavbaltap at Keil in May 1965. He retired in September 1970. After years of involvement with the sea it was extremely sad that Otto Kretschmer died in a boating accident while on holiday in 1998 at the age of 86. He was with his wife in Bavaria on the Danube celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary. His body was cremated and his ashes were scattered at sea. After the war Erich Topp attended the Technical University in Hanover where he studied architecture and graduated in 1950 with a degree in engineering.