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208583 SD David Morrison Merchant Navy from:Glasgow (d.3rd Sept 1939) David Morrison (son of Peter Young Morrison and Rosina Scullion) was a Glaswegian steward on the SS Athenia, the first ship to be sunk after the declaration of the Second World War. This was pegged by the Scottish papers as Scotland's Lucitania. Some months after the ship was sunk, a surviving crew member approached his mother, Rosina and told her that David had made it off the ship and was in a life boat with a number of other stewards. He relayed a rather gruesome story that he had seen the life boat struck by the prop of a Norweigian boat called the Knut Nelson who had answered the distress call and was the first rescue boat on the scene. He said they had been trying to help but struck the life boat by accident, killing all the occupants. This appears to have been covered up at the time, but this person told Rosina (my great great grandmother) on their return to Glasgow that most of the people who had been killed in the disaster had been on the life boat the Norwegian ship had struck and not killed by the German uboat who had torpedoed the Athenia (though some undoubtedly were, mostly below decks near the engine room). The number of stewards on the list of the dead, seems to be circumstantial evidence of this, as they would have been amongst the last off the Athenia, after the passengers, and it is quite possible they woud have shared a life boat. Unfortunately, the story has been relayed down 4 generations now, and the name of the crew member, who was kind enough to visit our family has been forgotten. Never the less, it was likely of some comfort to Rosina to know exactly had happened, since the official story seems to have been somewhat corrupted by the need for a propaganda win. After the sinking, Hitler declared that civillian shipping was not to be targeted (aye right, as David would no doubt have said!) in an attempt to pacify the outrage expressed most strongly by America, who had many citizens on board trying to escape the war in europe. Please type your message:      We recommend you copy the text about this item and keep a copy on your own computer before pressing submit. Your Name:             Email Address:       @ **Please type the first part our your email in the first box (eg. john.smith) the @ sign is added automaticallly, please type the second part in the second box (eg. gmail.com). Do not enter your full email in each box or add an @ sign or random spaces.** Please type in the code shown here:    If you are unable to read the code please click here. If you have received an error message for incorrect code, please click to refresh the code before resending. This should overcome the error message.