[23] The ship sank at 16:12, within twenty minutes of being hit,[26] which gave little time for other vessels to respond. [7] On 10 October 1932 Lancastria rescued the crew of the Belgian cargo ship SS Scheldestad, which had been abandoned in a sinking condition in the Bay of Biscay. RMS Lancastria was a British ocean liner requisitioned by the UK Government during the Second World War. Within hours of berthing at Liverpool, Lancastria was urgently recalled to sea; loud-speaker announcements at the main railway station successfully recalled nearly all the crew members;[16] she arrived in Plymouth on 15 June to await orders. [6] All Digitized Passenger Lists For the RMS Laconia Available at the GG Archives. The rest were rescued under continued air attack by the devotion of the small craft.. In 2005, Fenby wrote that estimates of the death toll vary from fewer than 3,000 to 5,800 people although it is also estimated that as many as 6,500 people perished, the largest loss of life in British maritime history. Walter was attacked by a man who wanted his life jacket. She was sunk off the French port of St. Nazaire while taking part in Operation Ariel, the evacuation of British nationals and troops from France, two weeks after the Dunkirk evacuation. The Ministry of Defence said all known documents relating to the Lancastria have been available at the National Archives at Kew since the early 1970s. This number far exceeded the amount of life jackets and lifeboats onboard, but this lack of safety equipment ultimately did not matter. She was ordered to sail from Nassau to New York for refitting as she had been requisitioned as a troopship, becoming HMT Lancastria. Therefore, destroyers, fishing boats, and other small craft had to ferry the evacuees to Lancastria while being bombed and machine-gunned by the Luftwaffes Junkers Ju 11 bombers of Kampfgeschwader 30. Eyewitness Emile Boutin (whose stories are included in the online Lancastria archive) wrote, Sometimes one body arrived, sometimes 16 arrived at once other times there were four days, five days without anything. The citizens of Moutiers buried the victims behind a sea dike, where they stayeduntil the end of the war. On the other hand,somewhatcynically,anMOD spokeswoman inWestminster said there is no formal event being organised adding that the government did not commemorate events willy-nilly. (6). Most populous nation: Should India rejoice or panic? Mr Napier is also wearing the Lancastria commemorative medal which was awarded by the Scottish Government in June 2008 in recognition of those who were aboard the vessel that day. RMS Lancastria was a British ocean liner requisitioned by the UK Government during the Second World War. Read tagging guidelines. Due to the imposition of the D-Notice, survivors and the crews of the ships that had gone to the aid of Lancastria did not discuss the disaster at the time due to the fear of court martial. [27] According to Jonathan Fenby in his book The Sinking of the Lancastria, the German aircraft strafed survivors in the water. Wynn has previously authored and co-authored books for the Your Towns & Cities in the Great War series published by Pen & Sword in addition to half a dozen non-fiction books and crime thrillers.. The liner sank within 20 minutes of being bombed by the Luftwaffe. RMS Lancastria was a British ocean liner requisitioned by the UK Government during the Second World War. British Expeditionary Force troops back to Britain. The RMS Lancastria was a British Cunard liner sunk on June 17, 1940 during World War II with the loss of an estimated 4,000 plus lives. Some of those left behind were women of the ATS, The story of the brave men rescued from the beaches of Dunkirk in May and June 1940 is well known, but less often told is the story of the nurses on the hospital ships that brought thousands of wounded servicemen back to the safety of England. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Naval Historical Foundation 1306 Dahlgren Avenue, SE Washington Navy Yard, DC 20374 1-202-678-4333 info@navyhistory.org. [2] It was a few weeks after the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) from Dunkirk, and Walter and Charlie were still in occupied Europe with an estimated 150,000 other British servicemen. [42] Early in the 21st century the French Government placed an exclusion zone around the wreck site. Around lunchtime, on the 17th, there was an air raid. The late edition of The Scotsman on July 25 1940 featured a six-paragraph story buried on the middle of page five. My Great Great Grandfathers son, would it be my Great Nephew, he is was on this vessel, and lived to tell about it, on the RMS Lusitania off the south coast of Ireland on May 7, 1915. The details that are known about the event have all come from witness statements. Lancastria survivor Charles Napier with a copy of the newspaper which reported the news of the Lancastria sinking. Wynn does not clarify what materials he utilized from these sources and there are no footnotes, in-text citations, or endnotes. Walter was in the water for around four hours before he was picked up. Modern estimates suggest that between 4,000 and 7,000 people died during the . [41], The Government of the United Kingdom has not made the site a war grave under the Protection of Military Remains Act 1986, stating that it has no jurisdiction over French territorial waters. May 1936. However, an exact number of Lancastrias casualties may never be known. Her parents Clifford and Vera Tillyer were working in Belgium when they decided to evacuate. Memorials in statue, plaques, and stained glass can be found in Staffordshire, Liverpool, and London. I think he was embarrassed. The speed at which the vessel sank meant that there was little time for other ships to react. "I think my grandfather was haunted by that," added Mark. Other British newspapers then covered the story, including the Daily Herald (also on 26 July), which carried the story on its front page, and Sunday Express on 4 August; the latter included a photograph of the capsized ship with her upturned hull lined with men under the headline "Last Moments of the Greatest Sea Tragedy of All Time". Lancastria survivor Charles Napier with a copy of the newspaper which reported the news of the Lancastria sinking. Survivors were taken aboard other evacuation vessels, the trawler Cambridgeshire rescuing 900. [3], The immense loss of life was such that the British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, immediately suppressed news of the disaster through the D-Notice system,[33] telling his staff that "The newspapers have got quite enough disaster for today at least". After the incident, Admiral Karl Dnitz issued the Laconia Order, henceforth ordering his commanders not to rescue survivors after attacks. It is famously known that the battle ended with the enormous undertaking of evacuating the British troops from French soil. Alchetron This web publication contains 154,528 pages of The Lancastria Tragedy: Sinking and Cover-Up, June 1940. Grace's Guide is the leading source of historical information on industry and Every nook and cranny, including her massive holds, was packed with people. The RMS Lancastria was a British Cunard liner sunk by enemy action on 17 June 1940 with the loss of an estimated 4,000 plus lives. NHF has decommissioned and is no longer accepting new members or donations. [29] Capt WG Euston recommended several of his crew for awards, including Stanley Kingett for "making repeated journeys in a lifeboat to pick up exhausted men from the water while under machine-gun fire from enemy planes", and William Perrin for "keeping up continuous machine-gun fire in an attempt to prevent enemy planes machine-gunning men in the water. 1912-05-28 RMS Laconia Passenger List Steamship Line: Cunard Line Class of Passengers: Second Cabin Date of Departure: 28 May 1912 NHF members are being converted to members of the Naval Institute. Official commemorations of those lost during the disaster were long in coming. When sent to newspapers or other publications it prevented particular information from being made public for reasons of state security. "But the lack of recognition and acknowledgement in the subsequent years that has left many survivors and relatives of victims feeling their sacrifice was worth less than the big heroic events of the Second World War.". Furthermore, estimates are that 36% of all BEF troops killed in action between September 39 and June 1940 were lost on theLancastria. He never saw his friend Charlie again. At midday Captain Sharp was advised to sail immediately but due to navalreports of a U-boat in the area he decided to await fora destroyer escort,a decision whichwas to seal the fate of manyevacuees. With the outbreak of the Second World War, she carried cargo before being requisitioned in April 1940 as a troopship, becoming the HMT Lancastria. The people living in the area, found bodies washed up on the beaches for weeks after the disaster. [48], The Lancastria Association of Scotland has members throughout the UK, France and the rest of Europe as well as members in North America, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand. By the mid-afternoon of 17 June, she had embarked an unknown number (estimates range from 4,000 up to 9,000) of civilian refugees (including embassy staff and staff of Fairey Aviation of Belgium), and line-of-communication troops (Pioneers, RASC etc), and RAF personnel. "I think that is probably the reason he never went to any of the company reunions. And what do those touched by the catastrophe want now? Quite enough disaster for today. In an anecdote somewhat buried in his Memoirs of the Second World War, Prime Minister Winston Churchill recounts a frightful incident that occurred on June 17, 1940. RMS Lancastria (later HMT Lancastria) was a British Cunard liner commandeered by the UK Government during World War II. But Charlie had also survived. . Wesalute them all. About 4,000 men, women and children lost their lives when the Lancastria sank 20 minutes after it was bombed by the Germans near the French port of Saint-Nazaire on 17 June 1940. 1,816 burials are recorded, over 400 of them in France. [33], However, there were earlier reports of the sinking and the scale of the disaster from survivors in local British newspapers. Many of those in the water drowned because there were insufficient life jackets, or died from hypothermia, or were choked by fuel oil. Some survivors claimed that a bomb had gone straight down a funnel, others thought bombs hit No, 4, 2, and 3 holds. Survivor Reg Brown speaks to BBC Coventry & Warwickshire, AI chatbots 'may soon be more intelligent than us', Russia troop deaths hit 20,000 in five months - US, Palestinian hunger striker dies in Israel prison, The 17 most eye-catching looks at the Met Gala, The burden of being cricket legend Tendulkar's son, 'My wife and six children joined Kenya starvation cult', On board the worlds last surviving turntable ferry. The U.S. The term RMS dates to 1840 when only the fastest and most reliable ships were contracted by the British government to carry mail. When the British troop ship 'Lancastria' was sunk in June 1940, some 5,000 people died - but news of the disaster was kept from the British public. She was sunk on 17 June 1940 during Operation Aerial. Having received an emergency order to evacuate British nationals and troops from France the ship was loaded well in excess of its capacity of 1,300 passengers. She sailed scheduled routes between Liverpool and New York until 1932, and was then used as a cruise ship in the Mediterranean Sea and Northern Europe. [39][a] In the face of continued campaigning by relatives, the MoD stated in 2015 that all known documents had long since been released through the National Archives. Gruppe/Kampfgeschwader 30. Hold No. On the morning of May 1st 1915 the Lusitania left New York behind. [56][57] The site of Lancastria wreck lies in French territorial waters and is therefore ineligible for protection under the Protection of Military Remains Act 1986; however, at the request of the British Government, in 2006 the French authorities gave the site legal protection as a war grave. However, he was told to embark as many as possible. Official notice of this disaster may not be forthcoming, but the descendants of those who died still honor the victims today and you can find some interesting history here www.lancastria.org.uk, For Sale: English Electric Lightning Jet Interceptors. She was sunk on 17 June 1940 during Operation Aerial. The Lancastria Tragedy comprises an introduction, eleven numbered chapters, and a concluding chapter titled In Closing, as well as endmatter including an About the Author section, Sources, and a three-page Index of proper nouns. The initial cover up at the time of the war is perhaps understandable, because it could be used as propaganda by the Germans. [47] The Lancastria Association of Scotland was formed in 2005 and holds its annual service at St George's West Church in Edinburgh. ; had they seen them perish or had they seen them escape?. Many other survivors were machine-gunned in the water by the German planes. This information will help us make improvements to the website. Some survivors claimed that a bomb had gone straight down a funnel, others thought bombs hit No, 4, 2, and 3 holds. Seventy five years after the sinking of the Lancastria - Britain's worst maritime disaster in history - why is the tragedy largely forgotten? Mark said: "There is a definite residual sense of grievance. One Royal Engineers officer reported that he had been told by one of Lancastria's loading officers that over 7,200 people had come aboard. [20] People were crowded into whatever spaces were available including the large cargo holds. In his memoirs, Churchill stated that he had intended to release the news a few days later, but that events in France "crowded upon us so black and so quickly that I forgot to lift the ban". [32] In 2005, Fenby wrote that estimates of the death toll vary from fewer than 4,000 to 6,500 people although it is also estimated that as many as 7,000 people perished, the largest loss of life in British maritime history, sometimes it is considered the second worst loss of life at sea (though with the estimates of the worst shipwrecks like the Goya also being 7,000, it is unknown which is worse. (5). Whatever the case, this event likely remains the largest single-ship loss of life in British maritime history, more than the RMS Titanic, which had an estimated 2,224 passengers and crew aboard and suffered over 1,500 fatalities. [35] The story was finally broken in the United States by the Press Association on 25 July,[36] in The New York Times, and the next day in Britain by The Scotsman, more than five weeks after the sinking. Walter ended up in the water and saw a dog swimming away from the wreckage. Other soldiers, meanwhile, performed acts of bravery and helped civilians while there was "no panic". Three direct hits caused the ship to list first to starboard then to port and she rolled over and sank within twenty minutes. All service personnel killed during the Second World War are recorded by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and where known that they lost their lives on the Lancastria. The missing dead who served in the Navy are commemorated on the naval memorials at Chatham, Plymouth and Portsmouth, with missing merchant seamen named at the Tower Hill Memorial, and the missing airmen who went down with the ship, listed on the Runnymede Memorial. 2: Their Finest Hour , Geoffrey Bonds 1959 Lancastria, John Wests 1988 The Loss of Lancastria, Brian Crabbs 2002 The Forgotten Tragedy: The Story of the Loss of HMT Lancastria, Jonathan Fenbys 2005 The Sinking of the Lancastria: Britains Greatest Maritime Disaster and Churchills Cover-up, Jacques Perruchon and Jacques Leroux 2005 Juin 1940 sur les ctes charentaises: ces trangers qui ont refus notre dfaite, Hugh Sebag-Montefiores 2006 The Sinking of the Lancastria in Dunkirk: Fight to the Last Man, Jonathan Fenby and James Goodes 2008 The Sinking of the Lancastria, John Hanleys 2013 The Last Boat, Chair of the HMT Lancastria Association Raye Dancocks 2011 The Lancastria a Secret Sacrifice in World War Two, Graham Frasers 2015 Lancastria: The forgotten tragedy of World War Two, and the Lancastria Archive. Surely, after all of these years now, it can come out. The death toll accounted for roughly a third of the total losses of the British Expeditionary Force in France. Let us know. Grace's Guide web site design is Copyright 2021 by Grace's Guide Ltd. Kate Murphy Schaefer is an undergraduate history instructor who studies the human impact of wars and revolutions. The evacuation of more than 300,000 Allied soldiers from the beaches of Dunkirk, between May 26th and June 4th 1940, After the Dunkirk evacuation, pockets of military personnel were left behind in France who had to make their way to the French ports for evacuation as best they could. "We want recognition that this was the biggest sea disaster ever," she said. This list of sources is concerning as there are at least a dozen sources that would have provided additional information to flesh-out his brief narrative, namely Winston Churchills 1949 The Second World War, Vol. The site of the sinking is not an official War Grave safeguarded by The Protection of Military Remains Act of 1986 because the British have no jurisdiction over the French territorial waters where Lancastrias wreck lies, but the French government has provided an appropriate level of protection to the site, prohibiting diving on the wreck, for example. Lancastria memorial plaque at Liverpool Pier Head. You will need a reader's ticket to do this. Lancastria was free to depart and the captain of the British destroyer HMSHavelock advised her to do so; but, without a destroyer escort as defence against a possible submarine attack, Sharp decided to wait for Oronsay before leaving. People were ferried from the mainland all day. While there were 2,477 survivors, it is . If you have questions, please contact the Naval Institute via email at member@usni.org or by phone at 800-233-8764. The ship's official capacity was 2,200 including the 375 man crew. Almost 50 years later, a memorial was erected in St. Nazaire, reading: Opposite this place lies the wreck of the troopship Lancastria sunk by enemy action on 17 June 1940 whilst embarking British troops and civilians during the evacuation of France. Raye Dancocks explains . "When we have tried, they (the government) have said it (documents on the Lancastria) are secret. Maintained by Sapere Software. LANCASTRIA (June 17, 1940) The loss of the Lancastria was the fourth largest maritime disaster of the war. The D-notice, or Defence Notice, also called DA-notice (Defence Advisory Notice), was a unique British government instruction devised in 1912. The British press did then cover the story, including front pages of the Daily Herald (also on 26 July) and Sunday Express on 4 August; the latter included a photograph of the capsized ship with its upturned hull lined with men under the headline "Last Moments of the Greatest Sea Tragedy of All Time". I can't think, after all of these years, it can still be a secret. RMS Lancastria and Operation Chariot memorials, St Nazaire. Not a member of the Naval Institute? Launched on the Clyde, Scotland, in 1920 by William Beardmore and Co as the Tyrrhenia for the Anchor Line, a subsidiary of Cunard, the 16,243 ton, 578 foot long liner could carry 2,200 passengers in three classes. 1)www.bbc.co.uk(2017)Dunkirk a few facts. Now aged 77 and living in Malvern, Worcestershire, she will be joined by her husband, her children and her grandchildren at a ceremony in Saint-Nazaire on 17 June to mark the tragedy. However, therewas no such light-heartedness for 800 RAF personnel of the ranks. Three direct hits caused the ship to list first to starboard then to port and she rolled over and sank within twenty minutes. Required fields are marked *. In 2011, a memorial was dedicated in Clydesdale, Scotland, where the ship was built. The Lancastria was tasked to bring them home. Both the 20,000 ton liner Oronsay and the Franconia were damaged by bombs and strafing, the former had her bridge devastated while the damaged Franconia was able to limp back to England for repairs. personnel, Have you found an error with this catalogue description? One can understand media censorshiptoensurethat morale wasnt impacted butwhile people in Britain were unaware of the tragedy, French citizens around the coast could not escape it as bodies washedashore all summer, all along ahundred kilometres of coastline.More and more appeared along the sand dependent upon tides and summer storms.But despite German rulings the French localscontinued to give decent Christian burialsalthough,onceagain, identificationrecords weresparse. A number of survivors reported that one bomb had gone down the ship's single funnel which is most likely, given the speed with which the ship sank about 1520 minutes.
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