The sinking of the Llandovery Castle was the worst war crime committed against Canadians in the First World War. The prosecution of this case set the stage for the Nuremberg war crimes trials a generation later. Nate Hendley has done a great job of telling this important story. It’s a part of our history that needs to be remembered.
Mark Bourrie, author of Big Men Fear Me and Bush Runner
Hendley, a true-crime writer, has here taken on a moral crime. He provides readers with vivid descriptions of the chaos as the vessel. The account is captivating: men and nursing sisters fighting to avoid being drawn into the whirlpool as their craft sank beneath the sea. Hendley provides an arresting portrayal of how hopelessness and peril shrouded the scene, already a panorama of death.
Literary Review of Canada
Engaging and illuminating, Hendley’s book brings this forgotten loss to life, detailing the people at the heart of it, their lives leading up to the fateful voyage … Meticulously researched, this book pulls together the details from innumerable first-hand accounts, letters, military records, court documents, and newspaper articles of the time — a huge amount of work that has paid off in an authoritative telling of the Llandovery Castle’s fate and the aftermath that resounded for decades before fading from popular memory. Hendley’s writing is sympathetic, moving, but never maudlin. He crisply tells this story, takes the reader right onto the deck of the doomed ship and into the ice-cold waters of the Atlantic. Scattered through the pages, the faces of those who were killed and those who survived peep out across the more than 100 years since the Llandovery Castle sank. This is a must-read for anyone interested in Canadian history, particularly of both the wars the country found itself in.
The Miramichi Reader
A tragic and deplorable incident...the sinking of the Llandovery Castle had immediate and lasting consequences, as Mr. Hendley so ably describes throughout the balance of the book, which is filled with survivor stories, memorials to their legacy, and the resulting trials which were pivotal in instituting the “I was just following orders” defence as a non-defence in subsequent war crimes trials.
The Seaboard Review
A useful addition to the literature on the impact of the First World War on society, specifically international law.
Canadian Military History, vol. 33
In Atrocity on the Atlantic, Nate Hendley presents an accessible exploration of the many lasting impacts of the Llandovery Castle incident. In addition to covering the actual sinking of the hospital ship, he makes an important new contribution in describing the little known subsequent Leipzig War Crimes Trials, and the historical legal precedent resulting from this atrocity.
Keith Matthews Best Book Award jury citation