Career
The Knight"s Cross of the Iron Cross was awarded to recognise extreme battlefield bravery or successful military leadership. Athenia incident On September 3, 1939, while in command of U-30 he sank the 13,581 ton passenger ship Athenia, the first ship sunk in World World War World War II Lemp later claimed that the fact that she was steering a zigzag course which seemed to be well off the normal shipping routes made him believe she was either a troopship or an armed merchant cruiser, and when he realized his error took the first steps to conceal the facts by omitting to make an entry in the submarine"s log, and swearing his crew to secrecy. The truth did not emerge until January 1946 at the Nuremberg trials, during the case against Grand Admiral Erich Raeder, when a statement by Admiral Karl Dönitz was read in which he admitted that Athenia had been torpedoed by U-30 and that every effort had been made to cover it up.
U-110 U-110 was captured on 9 May 1941 in the North Atlantic south of Iceland by the destroyers HMS Bulldog, HMS Broadway and the British corvette HMS Aubretia.
After depth charges forced the boat to the surface, where she was shelled, Lemp ordered the crew to abandon ship and open the vents in order to sink the crippled U-boat. After the war the Germans claimed that Lemp had been shot in the water, either by Sub-Lieutenant Balme"s boarding party from HMS Bulldog or from the Bulldog.
Balme, however, assured German journalists that no shot had been fired at any time by his party. Joe Baker-Cresswell, commander of the Bulldog, also denied that Lemp had been shot, and the official British explanation remains that Lemp committed suicide by drowning when he realized the consequences of his failure.
Promotions Bibliography.