Athos ~ 17 February 1917

The SS Athos was a French cargo-passenger ship of the Messageries Maritimes. Construction of the ship started on July 25, 1914 in Dunkirk, but was halted when the city was bombed during the First Battle of Ypres. The ship was towed to Saint Nazaire, where it was completed as a troopship and not, as intended, a passenger ship. 

She was launched in 1915. Her first voyage was to China, leaving on November 28, 1915. Her second was between October 29 and December 26, 1916 from Marseille to Yokohama and back. Aboard the Athos were 1,950 people, including the crew, Chinese laborers, a large continent of Senegalese soldiers and civilian passengers, including women and children. 

At 12;27 on February 17, 1917, during her third voyage, Athos was torpedoed by the German submarine U-65 commanded by Hermann von Fischel, while 180 nautical miles (330 km; 210 mi) east by south of Malta. The ship sank in 14 minutes taking with her 754 people, including the captain and 11 crew members. The survivors were picked up by the escort ships Enseigne Henry and Mameluck, as well as the gunboat Moqueuse and the torpedo-boat Baliste.

City of Benares ~ 17 September 1940

Pre-war postcard produced by the Ellerman Line
to publicize their passenger service to India.

Found at www.ww2today.com

The City of Benares left Liverpool on September 13, 1940 with 406 people on board, including 90 children who were being evacuated from wartime Britain to Canada. Late that day, in rough mid-Atlantic seas, the U-48 made two unsuccessful attempts to torpedo her. The third shot was successful and City of Benares sank in about 30 minutes.

There was difficulty getting all the boats away. Rescue was still a long way off even for those that did make it into boats or rafts. One lifeboat was missed by HMS Hurricane. The 46 occupants, including six boys, were only spotted by a flying boat 8 days later and picked up by HMS Anthony. In total 248 people died. The loss of 77 children lead to the abandonment of further overseas evacuations.

Dr Peter Collinson was the Medical Officer on board the destroyer HMS Hurricane, which went to the rescue:

"At about midnight on the 17th September, I unscrambled the ciphered signal in which their Lordships commanded H.M.S. Hurricane to proceed with ‘utmost despatch’ to position 56.43 21.15 where survivors are reported in boats. On taking this to Captain Simms, he remarked ‘Utmost Despatch’ I bet this means there are women and children amongst them. Apparently a normal signal would say ‘proceed forthwith’.
   We sighted the survivors at about 2pm. The first raft about 6 ft by 3 ft had two men and a boy clinging to it. These were Eric Davis and John McGlashen who were shielding Jack Keeley, aged 6. As we manoeuvred alongside the raft, I managed to take a photo with my box Brownie, which I later sold to the Daily Mirror for 6 pounds. It has since reappeared in several publications. Unfortunately I was unable to take any more photographs of the rescue, as the survivors needed medical attention.
   All survivors were suffering from severe exposure, and varying degrees of shock, being physically and emotionally exhausted. Some were dehydrated and most were suffering from bruised and sprained bodies, limbs, and suspected fractures. Several had severe swollen legs due to prolonged exposure to sea water, the so called ‘Immersion Feet’.
   Three little boys could not be revived in spite of the valiant efforts of the Petty Officers’ Mess at artificial resuscitation. They were later given a full Naval Burial by the Captain."

[Pictured Left] Royal Navy destroyer HMS Anthony rescues survivors from a lifeboat from the City of Benares which had been been adrift for 9 days after the ship sank. The ship was evacuating children from Britain to Canada under the auspices of the Children’s Overseas Reception Board [CORB] as part of Convoy OB 213 when it was torpedoed and sunk with heavy loss of life in the Atlantic by the German submarine U-48. The sinking became one of the most notorious events of WWII.

Click HERE for details of 265 people who were on board.

Narissa ~ 30 April 1940

The SS Nerissa was the last ship built for the Bowring Brothers' Red Cross Line service between New York, Halifax, Nova Scotia and St. John's, Newfoundland. Due to the severe winter conditions expected on her routes, Nerissa was designed with a strengthened hull and icebreaker style sloping stern to cope with ice floes.

She was built in Port Glasgow by the shipbuilding company William Hamilton & Company Ltd. in a remarkably short time; her owners only signed the contract for her construction on November 3, 1925 and she was launched on March 31, 1926 ... in time for the 1926 sailing season. After preliminary trials she departed on her maiden voyage to New York on June 5, 1926.

The Red Cross Line relied mainly on American tourist traffic which was much affected by the Depression. The service was abandoned and at the end of 1928 the Line, and its three ships Nerissa, Rosalind and Silvia, was sold to Furness Withy.

The ships then became part of the Bermuda & West Indies Steamship Co. Ltd. The Nerissa continued on the New York, Halifax and St. Johns route until 1931 when she was switched to the New York to Bermuda. She also made voyages to Trinidad and Demerara.

In late 1939 the Nerissa was modified as an auxiliary transport with accommodation for 250 men and was fitted with a 4-inch gun, a Bofors gun and gun crews drawn from the Maritime Regiment of the Royal Artillery. Due to her capability to steam at a higher speed than the usual 9 knots (17 km/h; 10 mph) of escorted convoys, Nerissa sailed alone, since she was considered capable of outrunning enemy submarines.

On September 7, 1940, she left Liverpool bound for Halifax, with 34 evacuated children under the Children's Overseas Reception Board (CORB). Their final destination was British Columbia.

By April 1941 Nerissa had made 39 wartime crossings of the North Atlantic. Her 40th crossing began on April 21, 1941 at Halifax, Nova Scotia. She carried 145 Canadian servicemen, RAF and Norwegian Army Air Service personnel, Northern Electric technicians, members of the press and a number of civilians sailing as part of a Britain bound convoy. At 10:15 she separated from the convoy to make her crossing alone, and arrived at St. John's, Newfoundland on April 23, where her captain received his Admiralty orders and she sailed for Britain in the evening.

On April 30 she entered the area patrolled by the aircraft of the Royal Navy's Coastal Command. A Lockheed Hudson aircraft flew over her at nightfall and signaled that the area was clear of enemy submarines. At 11:30 she was struck amidships by a torpedo fired from U-552, 200 miles from her destination of Liverpool. The lifeboats were manned and in the process of being lowered when an explosion split the ship in two, destroying the lifeboats yet to be lowered. U-552 fired an additional two torpedoes to ensure the ship's sinking which had struck together three minutes after the first. 207 civilians, crew and soldiers were killed.

In the short time between the two impacts the ship's radio operator was able to send a Mayday signal along with the ship's position and at first light a Bristol Blenheim of Coastal Command circled the scene. The British destroyer HMS Veteran arrived an hour later at 07:50 and picked up the 84 survivors, who were transferred to the Flower class corvette HMS Kingcup and landed at Derry.

Click HERE for expanded information and passenger list.

Rangantine~ 27 November 1940

Liner sunk by German raiders off East Cape

Found at www.nzhistory.net

Survivors of the Rangitane

The 16,712-ton New Zealand Shipping Company liner MV Rangitane was sunk by two German auxiliary cruisers (armed merchant raiders), Orion and Komet, 550 km off East Cape.

The British-owned vessel was the largest Allied merchant ship to be sunk by a German surface vessel during the Second World War (German submarines and aircraft sank many larger ships).

On 25 November the Orion and Komet (cruising with an unarmed supply ship, the Kulmerland) had sunk the little steamer Holmwood off the Chatham Islands, taking its 17 crew and 12 passengers prisoner. At 3:40 a.m. on the 27th the German flotilla intercepted a far bigger prize, the Rangitane, three days out of Auckland bound for the United Kingdom via Panama. The liner had a crew of 201 and was carrying 111 passengers, including Fleet Air Arm recruits and radar specialists on their way to Britain, and a group of British women who had escorted 477 child evacuees to New Zealand aboard SS Batory. A trainee airman, Alan Jones, recalled the attack:

"Half past three in the morning, the clanging of sirens was going, and there were big crashes…. I went up on deck, and there was one of the raiders on each side of us, and the supply ship in front. You could see some of the shells ricocheting off. To hell with that, so we went down below again. I was a bit scared, a bit bewildered. Then there was another salvo and one of the saloons was on fire…. There was the smell of cordite, and the ship would shudder every so often when it was hit."

Seven passengers were killed or mortally wounded, including four of the female child escorts. Eight crew members also lost their lives, including two stewardesses and two brothers who were both engine-room hands. (Many sources erroneously claim there were only 11 deaths, but it was closer to 17) The other 297 passengers and crew were taken aboard the German ships before the Rangitane was sunk.

Most of the captives were later landed on Emirau Island in the Bismarck Archipelago (near Papua New Guinea), from where they were repatriated to Australia in January 1941. A number of merchant seamen and servicemen, including Alan Jones, were taken to Germany and interned.

The Rangitane Riddle, A new book by Trevor Bell

“A rip-roaring yarn, all the better for being true”

The Rangitane was a large, fast, majestic, two-funnelled ocean liner; an icon of the golden age of sea travel. Early in the Second World War she was intercepted at night and sunk by two small, slow, scruffy German raiders disguised as Japanese merchant traders, far from the main theater of war. Why and how did this happen? Was it true that they knew the wherabouts of Rangitane? Were there really secret agents feeding the Germans with information? Had British secret codes been compromised? Why did the raiders sail over a thousand miles out of their way to release the majority of the survivors on a remote British island while others were shipped back to POW camps in Germany? 

This is the riddle of the Rangitane.

The Rangitane Riddle is the true story of the intrigue surrounding the capture and sinking of RMS Rangitane, based on the personal accounts of those involved. It follows the drama of the conflict and the subsequent amazing acts of humanity to the survivors. Described at the time as a ‘rip-roaring yarn‘, it proves that adversity can bring out the best in most people. Or can it? Read how two survivors made enemies of everybody.

Zamzam ~ 17 April 1941

The Zamzam was sunk on April 17, 1941.
"Grief turned to joy."

In the spring of 1941, before the United States had entered World War II, the passenger ship Zamzam was sunk by a German raider in the South Atlantic. Among the Zamzam's 201 passengers were 142 Americans, most of whom were missionaries en route to Africa. The dramatic sinking and miraculous rescue became headline news in 1941.

Even today the story still captivates interest, especially when original material is discovered. For example, here are pictures of the American Zamzam survivors as they arrived in San Sebastian, Spain, on May 31, 1941. Earlier in the day they had been liberated after being held in German-occupied France for nearly two weeks, and before that they had been prisoners at sea for more than a month. From Spain they traveled to Portugal and eventually back to the United States.

These unique pictures were scanned from the photo album of Mr. Charles Carr, a Red Cross accountant who had been involved in helping the Zamzam survivors travel through Spain in 1941. The pictures were made available to by David Ford, a collector of World War II era photographs.

The Zamzam Story - Introduction

Found at www.dren.us / eleander2@cox.net

It was a cold night in March, 1941, when the passenger ship Zamzam slowly pulled away from her berth at Hoboken, New Jersey, and glided past the lighted Statue of Liberty. As she headed toward the open sea, many of her 201 passengers gathered on deck and spontaneously began singing Christian hymns. With hymn after hymn filling the crisp night air, the Zamzam began her final voyage.

Although World War II had begun, the war did not yet include the United States. The 142 Americans on the Zamzam felt no great danger. For one thing, the Zamzam had been promoted as a neutral ship, owned by Egypt. Furthermore, her unusual route suggested safety. To avoid war zones, the Zamzam would be traveling south by way of Trinidad Island; then make a stop at Brazil's coastal port of Recife; next follow a diagonal course across the South Atlantic to Capetown on the southern tip of Africa; then steam up Africa's east coast to Mombasa, Kenya; and finally head back to home port in Alexandria, Egypt.

The Zamzam's passenger list was rather unusual, too. The largest category was comprised of 144 missionaries, representing 20 Protestant denominations and also including 17 Catholic priests and teaching brothers. Another distinct group was the 24 members of the British-American Ambulance Corp, en route to North Africa for humanitarian purposes and bringing with them ambulances and other equipment. A third group was the six tobacconists from Wilson, North Carolina, headed for Southern Rhodesia. The remaining passengers were various businessmen or eager family members traveling to be reunited with loved ones in Africa. Among the varied other passengers were David E. Scherman, photographer for Life magazine, and Charles J.V. Murphy, editor of Fortune magazine. En route to Africa on assignment, they had boarded the Zamzam at Recife, Brazil.

Not to be overlooked in this unusual mix of passengers is the fact that it included 33 children, some only babes and toddlers. Five of the women were pregnant. Indeed, the Zamzam's passengers were not the ordinary. As for her crew, they were mostly Egyptian, headed by British officers.

With an air of eagerness and confidence, the Zamzam's crew and passengers had sailed south from the New York area that night of March 20, 1941. A few days later, however, innocence was shattered and hope was diminished as portholes and glass surfaces to the outside of the ship were painted black. In addition, no light in any form was to be allowed on deck, not even to light a cigarette. The Zamzam was now traveling in strictest black-out.

No amount of protests by the passengers could undo this new and frightening reality. Maybe the Zamzam was not such a safe, neutral ship, after all. For some, talk turned to practical measures of readiness in case the Zamzam was attacked. Even children made plans. The older boys, for example, figured out how they would rescue the chocolate candy bars in the commissary. Generally, it can be said that traveling in black-out deepened a sense of trust in God, knowing He has promised to be with His children even in the deep waters and dark moments of life.

The Atlantis
Photo taken by Life magazine.

And so, in total darkness, as if hiding from an enemy, the Zamzam left Recife, Brazil, on April 9, 1941, and began the long south-easterly voyage across the South Atlantic Ocean. Little did the Zamzam officers know that the Germans had been watching, lurking in the waters nearby, waiting for the right moment to attack.

That moment arrived at dawn on April 17 when the notorious German raider Atlantis, using the name Tamesis, attacked the Zamzam.

Click HERE to continue reading ...

Tsushima Maru ~ 22 August 1944

Found at www.bowfin.org.

Tsushima Maru Sinking

Off the coast of Akusekijima
22 August 1944

Tsushima Maru from the
USS Bowfin Submarine Museum & Park

Not until more than twenty years after the end of the war did the crew of USS Bowfin learn that the unmarked, unlighted passenger-cargo vessel, Tsushima Maru, which Bowfin sank off the coast of Akusekijima on 22 August 1944, was loaded with 826 children. They, along with some of their school teachers and a few of their parents, were being transported from Okinawa to the mainland of Japan to escape the anticipated invasion of the Ryukyu Islands. Of those children, 767 were lost; only 59 were saved.

Survivors of the sinking were not allowed to speak of the incident under threats of extreme punishment.

The Convoy



Ships sailing in Convoy Namo 103 with Tsushima Maru, on 22 August 1944:

• Kazuura Maru (listed as Waura Maru in some sources): 6,804 tons. May later have been declared and used as a hospital ship by the Japanese government.
• Gyoukuu (source is unsure of transliteration) Maru. (Further information presently unavailable, although the ship may possibly be the 6,854 ton cargo vessel Gyoku Maru, which was sunk by USS Thresher (SS-200), at 35-05N, 124-24E on 18 September 1944.) 
• IJNS Hasu (destroyer, Momi or Kuri Class); Badly damaged 16 January 1945 at Hong Kong by aircraft of TF 38; surrendered September 1945 at Tsingtao and broken up 1946 at Sasebo. (from: Warships of the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1869-1945, pages 137-138.)
• IJNS Uji (gunboat); Survived the war; surrendered August 1945 and transferred to China as Chang Chi; taken over by Communists in 1949 and re-armed by 1955. (from: Warships of the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1869-1945, pp. 118-119.)

After the War

The sinking has been the subject of many articles and books published in Japan, as well as a good number of documentary broadcasts and even an animated feature film. Memorial ceremonies are held at sea at the approximate location of the sinking, and there are monuments in Naha City, Okinawa and on Akuseki Island for those lost at sea.

Recent Findings

An investigation team from the Japan Marine Science & Technology Center (JAMSTEC) found the sunken ship on 12 December 1997, in waters 10 kilometers northwest of Akuseki Island, Kagoshima Prefecture. The ship was positively identified by Dolphin 3K deep sea detection equipment, which video taped the portions of the sunken vessel and found the ship's name painted on her hull.



Following is a translation of a Waka Poem by His Majesty the Emperor of Japan, for his Year-end Presentation in 1997 (Ninth Year of Heisei):

The sighting of wreck of the Tsushima-MaruFoundered, with lives
Of the young evacuees
Held in her embrace,
The ship has been discovered
Far down in the ocean depths.
Note of Interest

Recent Findings

The periscope photograph shown at right has appeared in publications both in the U.S. and Japan, misidentifying the vessel as Tsushima Maru. Because the attack occurred at night, between 2200 and 2230 (10:00 pm. and 10:30 p.m.), and the ship (confirmed by all accounts) sank in less than 15 minutes, this photo could not possibly be of Tsushima Maru. Furthermore, Bowfin did not take any photographs of this attack, and the vessel shown appears to be much smaller and of a different type than the 6,754 ton, 136 meter long passenger-cargo ship, Tsushima Maru.

767 Children Killed in 1944

When Tsushima Maru Torpedoed

On 22 August 1944, about eight months before the Battle of Okinawa, the Tsushima Maru, a passenger-cargo ship, was on her way from Naha, Okinawa, to Kagoshima, Kyushu, a destination that was altered to Nagasaki, also in Kyushu, on the first day at sea, the 21st. It carried 1,484 civilians, including 826 children. According to some of the survivors, the purpose, ironically, was evacuation, i.e., to move children to a safer place on one of the main islands. It was part of a convoy that included, in addition, three cargo vessels, a destroyer and a gunboat.

A portion of the photos of victims exhibited in the

Tsushima-maru Memorial Museum.

Click HERE to visit the Museum.

At around 10 p.m., the ship was hit by torpedoes fired from the USS Bowfin, which was under the command of CDR J. Corbus. In less than 12 minutes, the ship sank, killing most of the passengers, including 767 children. Only 59 children survived. Five of them shared their accounts of the incident: [Left to right] Mitsuko Itokazu, Kiyoshi Uehara, Tae Uehara, Masakatsu and Chiyo Takara.

At the time, the Japanese government forbade survivors to discuss the subject. Thus years passed before word of the tragedy got out. In the Bowfin’s original records, this kill was listed as just another “cargo” ship. In fact, it’s still listed as such in some accounts. More than 20 years after the war, after the U.S. learned about the civilian passengers aboard, the record was revised to “passenger-cargo,” and added to the vessel’s description was “unmarked” and “unlighted” at the time of the attack.