Into the shadowlands of WW2

Claire Hubbard-Hall takes us on a wartime journey across the Atlantic.

On 30 June 1942, the Swedish-American liner SS Drottningholm docked in New York Harbour. As a diplomatic ship it had just completed its run from Lisbon (Portugal) to America. Standing at  538 feet long and 60 feet wide, painted white with a large circle on its funnel and Svenje (Sweden) clearly visible on its side, this meant that unlike other neutral ships which were hard to identify, the SS Drottningholm was able to cross the perilous Atlantic  Ocean unscathed. German submarines patrolled the North Atlantic, and  underwater fields of magnetic mines dropped by the Luftwaffe meant it was extremely hazardous for any neutral or Allied ship to navigate...