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The Minister for Defence Tony Killeen TD, was in Ballinrobe this week to unveil a seven feet memorial sculpture in honour of John King, a Mayo man who was awarded two Congressional Medals of Honour for his service to the American navy.

On the evening that France and Britain declared war on Germany, September 3 1939, the 13,500-ton liner SS Athenia, chartered by the Cunard Line, and bound for Montreal with 1,418 passengers and crew was torpedoed, without warning, 250 miles northwest of Malin Head in the North Atlantic*. The following day the Norwegian vessel, Knute Nelson, was steaming towards Galway with 367 shocked and injured survivors, and asked that the city be prepared to receive them. Other survivors were picked up by British naval vessels and brought elsewhere for treatment, but in total 112 passengers and crew were killed in the attack, 28 of them Americans sailing for home as war was declared in Europe.

Moves are under way in Ballinrobe to erect a memorial in honour of John King, a Mayo man who was awarded two Congressional Medals of Honour for his service to the American navy.