AH-WR-0862

SS City of Athens

Passenger-Freighter · United States · Lost 1918 · Delaware Bay & the Approaches

A coastal passenger-freighter sunk in a fogbound collision with a French warship in 1918, with heavy loss of life among her sleeping passengers and crew.

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Artistic recreation based on recorded historical documents. See the documented evidence.

Historically Reconstructed. Drawn from partial documentation of this vessel together with her known class and configuration. See the documented evidence.

The Vessel and Her Loss

Built in 1911 as Somerset for coastwise service between New York and Savannah, she was renamed City of Athens in 1917. On the night of April 30-May 1, 1918, while running darkened because of the wartime U-boat threat, she collided in fog with the French cruiser La Gloire off the Delaware coast and sank quickly, trapping many passengers and crew below decks. She now lies broken up in about 110 feet of water and is a well-known regional wreck dive.

Vessel

Built: 1911
Builder: New York Shipbuilding Company
Yard: Camden, New Jersey
Material: Steel
Length: 309 ft
Beam: 46 ft
Tonnage: 3648
Propulsion: Coal-fired steam
Owners: Ocean Steamship Company, Savannah, Georgia

Loss

Date: May 1, 1918
Cause: Collision
Location: Atlantic Ocean off the Delaware coast, near the approaches to Delaware Bay
Water: Atlantic Ocean, Delaware Bay approaches
Voyage: New York, New York → Savannah, Georgia
Cargo: General merchandise
Aboard: 135
Lives lost: 67
Master: Captain A. C. Forward

The Wreck Today

Depth: 110 ft
Condition: Broken up but in one contiguous debris field; boilers and bow section retain relief
Orientation: Not established
Discovered: Not established
Protection: Not established

Position

Coordinates: Not established
Accuracy: Position withheld to protect the site
Nearest: Offshore approaches to Delaware Bay / Cape May, New Jersey
Region: Delaware Bay & the Approaches

Checked njscuba.net and a diver's trip report; both describe the wreck as roughly 20 miles east of Hereford Inlet in 100-110 ft of water, but njscuba explicitly states its published site numbers are altered/not for navigation, and no independently verifiable coordinate was found.