RMS Lancastria
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The RMS Lancastria was a Cunard liner sunk on June 17, 1940 during World War II with the loss of, possibly, 4,000 lives.
Launched in 1920 as the Tyrrhenia for the Anchor Line, a subsidiary of Cunard. The 16,243 ton (16,503 tonnes), 578 foot (176 m) liner could carry 1,785 passengers in three classes and was built by William Bearmore & Company of Glasgow. She made her maiden voyage on June 19, 1922.
She was refitted for just two classes and renamed Lancastria in 1924. She sailed scheduled routes from England to New York until 1932, and was then used as a cruise ship in the Mediterranean and Northern Europe. With the outbreak of the Second World War, she carried cargo before being requisitioned in April 1940 as a troopship, becoming the HMT Lancastria. She was first used to assist in the evacuation of troops from Norway.
She was sunk while taking part in Operation Ariel, the evacuation of British nationals and troops from France after Dunkirk. After a short overhaul, she left Liverpool on June 14 under Captain Rudolf Sharpe, and arrived in the mouth of the Loire river estuary on June 16. By the mid-afternoon of June 17, she had embarked an unknown number of civilian refugees and RAF personnel, estimates range from 4,000 up to 9,000. The ship's official capacity was 3,000.
She was bombed at around 16:00 by Junkers 88 aircraft from Kampfgeweder II/30. Three direct hits, caused the ship to list first to starboard then to port and she rolled over and sank within twenty minutes. Over 1,400 tons of fuel oil leaked into the sea and was set partially ablaze, possibly by strafing. Many drowned, were choked by the oil, or were shot by the strafing German aircraft. There were 2,477 survivors. The death toll accounted for roughly a third of the total losses of the BEF in France. She sank around 5 nm (9 km) south of Chémoulin Point in the Charpentier roads, around 9 nm (17 km) out of St. Nazaire.
The immense loss of life was such that the British government banned any public announcements of the disaster through the D-notice system. The story was broken by the New York Times on July 26 and the British press did make brief mention of the story being reported. Due to the imposition of the D-notice, survivors and the crews of the ships that went to the aid of Lancastria did not discuss the disaster at the time due to the fear of court martial. The official records of the fourth worst maritime loss of the war and the worst in British history have been withheld until 2040 under the Official Secrets Act. The site is a war grave protected by the Protection of Military Remains Act 1986.
Rudolf Sharpe survived the sinking and went on to command the Laconia, losing his life along with many Italian POWs on September 12, 1942 when she was torpedoed off West Africa.
Sources
- Christophe Francois, History of a secret sinking, Atlantic TV / France 3
- Variety of BBC TV and Radio interviews by Mark Hirst, grandson of a survivor and Lancastria researcher
- Brian Crabb The Forgotten Tragedy: The story of the loss of HMT Lancastria ISBN 1900289504
- Jonathan Fenby, The Sinking of the "Lancastria": Britain's greatest maritime disaster and Churchill's cover-up, Simon and Schuster 2005 ISBN 0743259300
See also
- List of ship and ferry disasters
External links
- [Largest online archive of Lancastria material]
- [French Lancastria site]
- [Lancastria Association of Scotland]
- [The Lancastria Association]
- [Maritime Disasters of World War II]
- [The 'Lancastria' - a Secret Sacrifice in World War Two]
- [Britain's worst sea disaster recalled] (BBC News, 17 June, 2005) -also ).
- [23rd Feb 2006,Times - her bell]
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