SS Athinai (1908)

The SS Athinai was commissioned by the Hellenic Transatlantic Steam Navigation Company to operate between Piraeus, Kalamata, Patras, and New York. She was requisitioned by the Royal Hellenic Navy for use as a military transport in the Balkan Wars between November 1912 and June 1913, after which she resumed her normal operations. Her owners went bankrupt in August 1914 and she was purchased by the National Steamship Navigation Company and was operated by the National Greek Line for use on the same route.[1]

On 13 September 1915, the Athinai left New York City[2] carrying 438 passengers and crew of 70 and a cargo of coffee, rice, cotton and newspaper.[3] A fire started in her sealed lower #2 hold on the morning of September 18, while the ship was still only a few days out of New York. Captain Nicolas Boziatgiles ordered the hold vents closed and pumped steam from the engine into the compartment in an effort to control the fire, but by the next morning the flames appeared to have started anew and a general SOS was issued on the ship's wireless set. Her distress call was received by the Anchor liner SS Tuscania, by the British freighter Roumanian Prince, by the Atlantic Transport Line liner Minnehaha and by the French liner La Touraine, but by the time the Tuscania and Prince arrived the fire appeared to be uncontrollable.[3] Passengers were ferried from the Athinai to the Tuscania and Prince by lifeboat, and the burning Athinai was abandoned at 40' 54" N, 58' 47" W.[4] All of the Athinai's passengers and crew were rescued. One second class passenger, Thomas Sotir of Meadville, Pennsylvania, died of heart disease 15 hours after boarding the Tuscania, and was buried at sea.[5][6]

Captain Boziatgiles immediately asserted his belief that the fire was caused by incendiary bombs, noting that the fire started in a hold containing a relatively non-combustible cargo of rice and coffee and that the fire had seemed to reignite at several points in the hold on the morning of the 19th, after the flames had seemingly been damped by pressurized steam the previous day. Based on his testimony, the National Steam Company secured the help of a detective agency to investigate the workers involved in filling the hold.[3] It was noted by marine department officials that Athinai's fire broke out at about the same location as on the Sant Anna, which had also caught fire on the 19th.[7]

Boziatgiles's claim was seemingly vindicated with the 24 October arrests of three Germans, Robert Fay, Walter Scholz and Paul Daeche. The men had attempted to purchase 10 pounds of explosive picric acid, a suspicious action which led investigators to discover New York Harbor maps, high explosives and ship-mountable explosive devices in their apartment and in a rented storage unit.[8] Fay later claimed to be a German spy and was eventually convicted, along with Scholz and a third conspirator, on two indictments of "conspiring to destroy vehicles with intent to cause loss".[9][10]