This is an eerie story involving the first passenger ship sunk by mistake
by a u-boat at the beginning of ww2.
In 1939, Axel wenner Gren, a Swedish industrialist who was a great proponent of vacuum cleaners and was famous for the commercialization of the well known ELECTROLUX
brand (his sales manual from 1912 is still used today) decided his wife needed a vacation, she had frayed nerves because of an episode
one evening at their house. He owned the largest private yacht in those times, the SOUTHERN CROSS, that
he purchased from Howard Hughes who used it to entertain many ladies then.
Their destination was the Bahamas, a place he had fallen in love with. He later was instrumental
Their destination was the Bahamas, a place he had fallen in love with. He later was instrumental
in its development and was good friends of the governor, the duke of Windsor.
The southern cross had received a distress signal from the torpedoed SS.Athenia and was one of the first on the scene and rescued 370 people. the passenger ship had been attacked by sublieutenant fritz Julius Lemp aboard the u-30 who later was going to be court martialled because Hitler was furious of the attack on an unarmed vessel. He later was shot in the water
The southern cross had received a distress signal from the torpedoed SS.Athenia and was one of the first on the scene and rescued 370 people. the passenger ship had been attacked by sublieutenant fritz Julius Lemp aboard the u-30 who later was going to be court martialled because Hitler was furious of the attack on an unarmed vessel. He later was shot in the water
abandoning the sinking U-110, this was the event that inspired the movie U-571 where the British hms bulldog captured the sub and its contents of valuable codes that was so secret that president Roosevelt was not informed until almost 2 years later. So much for lemp. Wenner gren
was accused of spotting the athenia and giving its position away to the sub and its proximity to the whole event was not viewed as a coincidence. years before he had studied in Germany and before the war tried to avert it by having an audience with Herman Goering, lecturing him and the Nazis of their nefarious intents. he was a poor self made diplomat and even wrote a book about it. To make matters worse he had a mistress- Inga Arvad, who accompanied Hitler during the Olympics and was one of the few foreign journalists to be granted interviews with him. his association with her and the nazis got him on a f.b.i. blacklist and his bank accounts were frozen world-wide and he lived in exile in Mexico. this inga arvard also got john f. Kennedy in trouble
as they were dating when he was in naval intelligence in Washington d.c. in 1940- his father was able to squirm the family out of this most disastrous affair and he was reassigned to the navy in the pacific theater. She later became a screen writer in Hollywood. After the war president Truman exonerated him of the witchunt he was subjected to during the war.
Weeks before Mr. and Mrs. wenner gren took their yacht trip, Mr's. gren was walking upstairs
one night and screamed in the dark- she confronted a man drenched in water on the staircase
holding in his arms a young child with a bleeding head injury. the sudden screaming brought Mr. gren to the stairs and the man and child disappeared in thin air. Mr. gren hearing his wife's telling of the reason for the outburst rightly thought she needed a vacation, so off they went.
When the southern cross came upon the hapless victims in the north sea, the first survivors
coming up the gangplank was a man drenched in water holding in his arms a young girl with a head injury. This story was told to a reporter in Canada by the couple when they invited many years later some of the survivors to their yacht for lunch.
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