"Atrocity No. I"

Tycoon Axel Leonard Wenner-Gren, 58, a tall, vigorous, pink-cheeked extrovert who speaks a dozen languages, is called "Rockefeller of Sweden" because he gave $7,500,000 for a research institute, $100,000 for antiaircraft batteries to defend Stockholm. The Bofors Co., which makes antiaircraft guns, is largely his. So is most of worldwide Electrolux Co. (refrigerators, vacuum cleaners). His lady is from Kansas City, Marguerite Liggett, who studied opera singing in Berlin. His yacht, the Southern Cross, is one of the world's largest, was once owned by Flier Howard Hughes.

Furious at Wenner-Gren last week were masses of his countrymen. Swedish newspapers flayed him for buying 50 tons of petrol, of which Sweden suffered a War shortage, and setting out on the Southern Cross for a pleasure cruise in the Atlantic.

But destiny was as kind to the tycoon as it was cruel to 1,450 Canadian and U. S. travelers who sought last week to get home from thunderous Europe. In the 13,581-ton S. S. Athenia of the Donaldson Atlantic Line (affiliate of Cunard-White Star) they embarked at Glasgow, Belfast and Liverpool for Montreal. At 8:59 p. m. Sunday, about 200 mi. west of the Hebrides, a mortal explosion suddenly rocked and ripped the Athenia's, hull, killed perhaps 100 passengers & crew, started her sinking fast. All hands got safely into lifeboats. One of the first ships to reach the rescue scene was the Southern Cross. Bitterly criticized Tycoon Wenner-Gren became an international hero as he picked up 200 survivors, started back with them toward Ireland. The Norwegian freighter Knute Nelson picked up 800 more. British warboats raced toward the spot where the Athenia was left to sink. World headlines screamed, GERMANS TORPEDO BRITISH LINER.

Atrocity No. 1 of World War II came just ten hours after Great Britain entered her state of War with Germany.* In the House of Commons, Winston Churchill celebrated his return as First Lord of the Admiralty with a speech in which he said: "It [the Athenia] was certainly torpedoed without the slightest warning and in circumstances which the opinion of the world after the late War--in which Germany concurred--had stigmatized as inhumane. . . .The ship was not armed as an auxiliary cruiser."

Berlin officials announced: "All German naval forces have the strictest instructions to act in accordance with the rules established by international law." They suggested the Athenia might have run into a British mine. To this the British Admiralty retorted there were no British mines 200 miles west of Ireland. Retorted Berlin: "It is likely that a British submarine fired the torpedo as a propaganda measure to influence United States neutrality."

Among the 313 U. S. passengers were persons from 20 States: six New Jerseyites, a party of ten college girls mostly from Texas, three geneticists returning from a convention in Edinburgh, four U. S. aircraft engineers who had been assembling U. S. planes for Britain. The sister (Maurine) and brother-in-law (Franklin Dexter) of U. S. Tennist Sarah Palfrey Fabyan were aboard. Since no U. S. lives were lost the incident was far less grave internationally than the sinking of the Lusitania (of 1,198 dead, 124 were Americans), but officials in Washington, D. C. expressed angry concern (see p. 13). Winston Churchill's staff sped plans to convoy all passenger ships with British men-o'-war. President Roosevelt discussed giving U. S. ships like protection. >First prize of the British naval forces was the German freighter Olinda, bound for Hamburg with $700,000 worth of Argentine wheat and meat. The cruiser Ajax overhauled her 50 miles north of Montevideo, put her crew on a passing tanker, sent her to the bottom.

*First British ship torpedoed by Germans in World War I was a warboat, the scout Pathfinder, more than one month after hostilities began.

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