OUTRAGE AT SEA

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 September 1939, Page 5

OUTRAGE AT SEA

BRITISH LINER TORPEDOED BY GERMAN SUBMARINE Attacked and Sunk Without Warning PASSENGERS INCLUDE MANY AMERICANS NEWS ELECTRIFIES UNITED STATES (By Telegraph.—Press Association.—Copyright.) NEW YORK, September 3. An official statement issued in London reports that the steamer Athenia, with 1400 passengers aboard, was torpedoed and sunk 200 miles off the Hebrides. The Athenia left Liverpool yesterday for Canada, apparently on an irregular course. It is understood that she was escorted by naval craft. A radio broadcast reports that all the passengers and crew, except those killed by the explosion, took to the boats and were picked up by various ships in the locality. The number killed is not known. A large number were picked up by a Norwegian steamer and are being taken to Norway. The Athenia was attacked without warning under circumstances that all countries, including Germany, had condemned as inhumane. It was not known how many were lost or missing. The Athenia’s lifeboats were capable of carrying 1080 passengers. In a statement in the House of Commons on the sinking of the Athenia, Mr. Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty, said it was certain that the Athenia was attacked without the slightest warning, under circumstances which had been condemned by all nations of the world as inhumane. The Athenia in no way was equipped as an auxiliary cruiser. A London correspondent of the United Press of America says the American Embassy reports that 311 Americans were aboard the Athenia, 101 embarking at Liverpool, 145 at Glasgow, and 65 at Belfast. There were at least three children among them and also a party of school girls returning from a tour of England.