Fragments of War. Joyce Hibbert
their beds, food, clothing, and willing attention., Food for the day was one egg, one potato in its jacket, one piece of hard tack biscuit, and tea. For these rations a little Cockney steward from the Athenia lined us up and kept a sharp eye out for anyone trying to get extras. The Poles in those distinctive long overcoats (under which they’d tried to smuggle possessions into lifeboats) got particular attention.”
Walking into a room full of injured, Barbara Bailey found the sight and smell overpowering. In addition to the wounded, there were several women who had started heavy periods.
An injured man called her over. She noticed that his hands were badly burned and lacerated. Asking her to take his wallet from his pocket and look after it for him, he explained that he was an embassy clerk and his papers must be destroyed if the enemy should appear. Steel hawsers had burned and torn his hand when he helped lower a lifeboat full of people. Nevertheless, the courageous Scot had rowed in one of the lifeboats.
Daylight came and in the distance they could see the doomed Athenia. On 5 September the Knute Nelson and her gallant crew reached Galway, Ireland carrying 430 Athenia survivors. Red Cross workers hurried aboard and removed the injured. Barbara Bailey had sustained a leg burn when she slid down the steel cable into the lifeboat. She accompanied the embassy clerk to hospital.
“I watched as they went to work on those damaged hands of his and then all of us – doctors and nurses included – drank a generous slug of whisky.”
Before crossing to Glasgow, the survivors stayed two nights in Galway. During the first night Barbara Bailey, not surprisingly, had “a nightmare or something” which really frightened the other two women in the room.
8 September 1939
My dear Barbara,
We all had a very anxious time. Lottie telephoned at 8 o’clock on Monday morning and enquired whether you were with us. When I told her that you had left Liverpool on Saturday she said “Good God, the boat has been torpedoed.”
... On Tuesday when we heard of those that had reached Glasgow and that you were not with them we rather lost heart. However your telegram reassured us.
We should dearly like to have you home but we feel that you alone should decide as to this. Life will be very dreary here particularly when it is dark and the perpetual dread of an air raid. Air raid warning on Tuesday morning for about two hours. If you go to Canada we shall feel that you and Fred are safe.
... Should you go to Canada your mother and I hope that we shall be spared to see you as soon as the War, which must be a terrible one, is over.
With fondest love,
Your affectionate father
Fred W. Bailey
Barbara Bailey, fit and determined, returned to live at Bookham Common near London for the duration of the Second World War. She firewatched, drove an ambulance and did office work for her solicitor father. The family home in East Dulwich was bombed three times and her parents were forced to move to their weekend bungalow at Bookham Common. The bungalow sustained bomb damage on two occasions.
Bookham Common was used extensively by the military and bombed frequently. It was on the Common that she met the Canadian soldier who became her husband.
The late Laura Bacon and her son Keith posed on the deck of the Southern Cross, a New York bound ship that rescued them after the sinking of the Athenia. Laura Bacon, the aunt of Stanley Salt of Chapter Three, is wearing replacement clothes given her for her wet torn ones, while the package under her arm is all that remained of her luggage.
Six and a half years after the Athenia sinking she sailed for Canada again; this time the ship was the grand old Cunarder, the Aquitania. Peacetime luxury liner turned troopship, she was converted again, into a war bride transport. Barbara Bailey was one of many hundreds of war brides on board bound for Halifax and points beyond.
Meanwhile, the Germans denied responsibility for the Athenia sinking. They claimed that she had been sunk by three British destroyers.
In January 1946 at the Nuremberg trials, the truth was revealed. During the case against Admiral Raeder a statement by Admiral Doenitz was read. In it he admitted that the Athenia was torpedoed by U-30 and that every effort was made to cover the fact. Those efforts began early with steps taken by the U-30 commander, Captain Lemp.
The commander contended that he had mistakenly identified the Athenia as an armed merchant cruiser. When he realized his error, Captain Lemp, later killed in action, hid his error by omitting to make an entry in his log book and by swearing his crew to secrecy.
An affidavit from Adolph Schmidt, a surviving member of the U-30 crew, was produced as evidence. He told of how, later in September when he had been severely wounded and due to disembark, Captain Lemp had presented him with a document insisting that he sign it. The wording was
I, the undersigned, swear that I shall shroud in secrecy all happenings of 3 September 1939, on board U-30, regardless of whether foe or friend, and that I shall erase from memory all happenings of this day.
Was she haunted by the Athenia experience?
“Not until it came time for the first lifeboat drill. The war was over but I was appalled that many women kept on chattering and did not listen to instructions. Some didn’t even bother attending. I discussed it with a war bride who’d been a survivor of a ship sunk in the Mediterranean. We both knew the importance of those drills.” And both women were happy to sail to Canada and peace for their new married lives.
Barbara Bailey Durant, Athenia survivor, settled on a small farm in the Ottawa region and worked alongside her husband.
2
Aboard the Algonquin
His time in the Royal Canadian Navy, and more especially the year on HMCS Algonquin, Welsh-born Mervyn Davies would never forget or regret; the close-knit 250 man unit, the good quarters, the taking of the fight to the enemy to hasten the end of the war, and he had had the great luck to have been a sailor who was never seasick.
His first taste of life at sea had been in job-scarce 1929 when he had spent six weeks at Gravesend Sea School before signing up as crew on the British Diplomat, one of the largest oil tankers of the day.
“We sailed to Persia (now Iran), took on the oil and delivered it to Norway, Belgium, and England. I was young and my attitude on return was, I’ve been to sea – now I’ll try something else,”
A brother was a fireman with the Westmount Police and Fire Department, Montreal and in 1930 Mervyn too, left his home in Neath, Wales for Canada. He found work in the shipping department of a textile firm and in 1933 he sent for and married Edna Rowlands, his hometown fiancee.
But it was not the siren call of the sea that caused him to leave his wife and two children and the comforts of home in August 1942.
“I’d decided that it was my duty to get into the war. My wife understood. I already knew a bit about life aboard ship and I’d been trying to join the RCN for some time before I was accepted. My first draft in November was to HMCS Dawson, a corvette on loan to the American Navy in the Pacific.
“As Leading Supply Assistant, I was one of a team responsible for the ship’s supplies which included all provisions and navy stores. Based in Dutch Harbour, we were convoying GIs and Sea Bees out to Amchitka in the Aleutians. There was little action in the area and the routine work lasted ten months. The usual razzing took place between Canadians and Americans. Once, when we were alongside a troopship in Dutch Harbour, the Yanks were teasing ‘C’mon fellas, it’s time for you to get your afternoon tea.’ One of our boys checked his watch with ‘So it is’ and went below. He