"Very Reliable"

WED 4 OCT 1939
U.S. Naval Attaché in Berlin reports that Grossadmiral Erich Raeder, Commander in Chief of the German Navy, has informed him of a plot wherein U.S. passenger liner Iroquois, that had sailed from Cobh, Ireland, with 566 American passengers on 3 October, would be sunk (ostensibly by the British) as she neared the east coast of the United States under "Athenia circumstances" for the apparent purpose of arousing anti-German feeling. Admiral Raeder gives credence to his source in neutral Ireland as being "very reliable" (see 5, 8 and 11 October).

U.S. freighter Black Hawk, detained by British authorities since 19 September, is released.