As we traveled that midsummer of 1939, we couldn't miss the growing feeling of apprehension in the air. There seemed to be hope that Hitler's threats would come to nothing in the end, that something would happen to halt the malevolent maniac in his tracks. It was idle, wishful thinking. As far as we ourselves were concerned, this was certainly disturbing and we felt sorry for people faced with a possible war. But if war came, we would be out of it. Our ship was sailing from Southampton on September eleventh. We would be on our way home, crossing the Atlantic very shortly.
On August 28th we were in Galway, Ireland. When we went in to dinner at our hotel that night, we saw a group of about fifteen ready to leave. They had dined earlier. We heard some murmured "Bon Voyages" from other guests who told us the people were off to board a tender which would take them to their ship, anchored out in Galway Bay. They were on their way home to America, sailing on a British liner, the S.S. Athenia. She was now en route to Glasgow and Belfast to pick up more passengers before her Atlantic crossing.
Three days later in the small town of Thurles in County Tipperary, on the first day of September, we got the news that Hitler had invaded the free state of Danzig and Poland on some trumped-up excuse. We were on a bus tour, seven of us in all. Every one of us, with the guide and the bus driver, reacted the same way: dazed shock. The long-dreaded thing had actually happened.
Britain and France declared war immediately. In Dublin next day there was a message for us: our ship would not be sailing from Southampton. Plans were uncertain. We were to contact the U.S. Embassy and wait. The following day the S.S. Athenia was sunk off the southwest Irish coast, reportedly torpedoed by a German u-boat. I didn't know it at the time, but two of my friends were among the survivors. One of them told me they had spent the night in an over-loaded lifeboat, using their shoes to bail out water. Their rescuers took them to Galway and when they appeared on the street, blanket-wrapped, there were reverent murmurs of "Glory be to God--survivors!" from the watching bystanders.
Dublin is a lovely city and under other circumstances waiting would have been a pleasure. We were too nervous to appreciate it properly. On September ninth the Embassy message was good. We were to leave that night for Newcastle-on-Tyne, England. It was all hush-hush. We were to keep quiet about our plans. Following instructions, we went that evening to Dun Laoghaire, the seaport south of the city. We boarded a blacked-out boat and sailed across the Irish Sea to Holyhead in Wales. As I recall, there was a dimly lit station there. We hoisted our luggage on board a train and were taken to Liverpool. There we changed to another train and were off to another city-Manchester? Here there was another change of trains, involving more luggage hoisting which didn't bother us much because we were so relieved to be going home.
It was one of the saddest nights I have ever spent. We were crossing northern England and the train stopped at stations all along the way. At each one was the same heart-rending scene. Young soldiers were saying good-bye to their families and boarding the train. They were already off to war. Everyone was trying to be brave. It was just over twenty years since the tragedy of World War I. The parents of the recruits must have remembered all too well the battles of that conflict--Chateau Thierry, Belleau Wood, so many others. Some might have visited Flanders fields and seen "the poppies grow between the crosses, row on row". It was starting all over again and their own children were caught up in it, going to fight a crueler opponent than the Kaiser. What I saw that night is etched forever on my memory.
At the end of that long night, we arrived in Newcastle-on-Tyne and were sent to our hotel where we stayed inside all day. When night came, there were lights inside but heavy curtains covered all the windows. Next morning we went with some new fellow travelers to the dock where the
M.S. Europa was tied up. She was a sister ship to the M.S. Scanstates on which we had previously sailed. Both were cargo liners, powered by motors rather than steam as larger liners are. The Europa's cargo on this voyage would be extra passemgers. She had an enormous Danish flag painted on each side. It was oddly quiet. There was a good deal of bustle, with passengers and luggage going on board but it was a subdued bustle. I don't recall what time we sailed. We untied and slipped out of the harbor almost noiselessly with not the faintest suggestion of the usual cheerful fanfare accorded a departing ship. At nightfall lights were turned on, literally from stem to stern. Some were focused on the giant flags that hopefully proclaimed Denmark's neutrality. We went directly north, around the Orkney Islands, then into the wide Atlantic. I couldn't say that people actually relaxed, but tensions seemed to ease a bit as passengers began to know each other. Here we were in the north Atlantic, near where the Athenia had gone down. There were feeble jokes about our all being in the same boat and some people had clothes beside their beds at night, ready for a quick change in an emergency. Radio was our means of communication with the outside world. I think it was in our sixth night out that we heard a British troop carrier had been sunk with almost a thousand casualties. A German baron, traveling with his wife and two small sons (the younger one named Adolph) was obviously pleased and barely concealed a smirk. In a mixed bag of passengers he was the most noticeable because of his large size and his constant woman chasing. The nanny in charge of his little boys was not very attractive and he was heard to complain bitterly that his wife never hired pretty girls. The baroness was no dope. She knew her baron.
After about twelve days (I'm unsure of this) we passed the Azores and the perilous part of the voyage was over. A few days later we docked at Charlotte Amelie, capital of the U.S. Virgin Islands. Some passengers debarked in Kingston. Jamaica. We went through the Panama Canal to the Pacific, up the coast of Central America and docked at San Pedro on October eighth. The long voyage was over. It was an anti-climax but a welcome one. We were safe but the little Europa wasn't so lucky. I heard later that when in use as a troop carrier for the Allies, she was sunk in the North Sea.