Captain Sharp estimated 5,500, but one Royal Engineer officer was told that there were more than 7,200 persons aboard. On September 12, the children assembled at the dockside in Liverpool clutching small suitcases and their gas masks. It stayed upright, but the big waves breaking over the bows quickly swamped it. 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. These advantages meant that battleships and battlecruisers were repeatedly sunk by carrier-based aircraft, from Pearl Harbor to Taranto to the Battle of the Philippines Sea. A tragedy in itself made worse by the fact they should never have been onboard to begin with. The first lifeboat it found contained only corpses. LANCASTRIA (June 17, 1940) The loss of the Lancastria was the fourth largest maritime disaster of the war. But he couldnt. "Naval Events, June 1940, Part 1 of 4, Saturday 1st Friday 7th", "Norwegian Homefleet - WW II, Ships starting with Sa through SN", "The History of the Eastbourne Lifeboat Station", alaskashipwreck.com Alaska Shipwrecks (T), "Naval Events, May 1940, Part 1 of 4, Wednesday 1st Tuesday 7th", "Naval Events, June 1940, Part 2 of 4, Saturday 8th Friday 14th", "Norwegian Homefleet - WW II, Ships starting with K", "Tyne Built Ships. Five days into the voyage, the Royal Navy escort ships headed off, confident there was no danger. Not a member of the Naval Institute? Earlier that day the battlecruisers sank an oil tanker and a trawler. Two of the youngest serving Merchant Seamen killed in WWII. From the 90 whod set out from Liverpool, there were only 13 survivors. However, he was told to embark as many as possible. But Colin Ryder Richardson, snug in his bunk, saw no reason for alarm. Many thanks. Today, it sits in a glass case at the Imperial War Museum in London a reminder of all the children whose parents loved them too much to keep them at home. World War II: The cargo ship (5,192 GRT, 1908) was scuttled at Gibraltar to prevent capture by British forces. The date was September 17, 1940. Wynn cites seven online sources (p. 181), namely the British Newspaper Archive, the Britain at War website, the British section of Ancestry.com, the Militarian Forum, the Forces War Records, the Wartime Memories Project, and the War Graves Records, which appear to have been mistakenly recorded as a .com website rather than .org. In another boat, a young mother had reached the limits of her endurance, but she never knew her babies were already dead, because she soon joined the growing list of victims. Lancastria was attacked, apparently by five Junkers Ju 88 dive bombers, and the ship capsized, and sank within twenty minutes mid-afternoon on June 17 off the French port of St. Nazaire. On December 19, 1940, the 'Isolda' was bombed by German plane and sunk three miles south of the Saltee Island. 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. 2012 Sean Longden. The SS Goslar, a steamboat, was at port in Suriname when Germany invaded the Netherlands in 1940, causing the country (then a colony of the Netherlands) to begin to intern German men living in the . As it hovered over the waves, it suddenly lurched, then one end jerked downwards and was smashed by a wall of water. This page has been archived and is no longer updated. He currently writes on security and military history for War Is Boring. World War II: The trawler (30 GRT, 1922) was sunk in the North Sea by Heinkel He 111 aircraft of KG26, Luftwaffe. She was responsible for the sinking of the HMS Curacoa in 1942 but the Queen Mary survived the war without sinking. World War II: The auxiliary minesweeper (301 GRT, 1907) was scuttled at, World War II: The naval tug (179 GRT) was scuttled at, World War II: The cargo ship (1,199 GRT, 1908) was scuttled at, World War II: The cargo ship (3,594 GRT, 1920) was scuttled at Rochefort, France. 'How much can business take?' The term RMS dates to 1840 when only the fastest and most reliable ships were contracted by the British government to carry mail. Chronological List of U.S. World War II: The auxiliary patrol vessel (302 GRT, 1906) was scuttled at Brest, France. The Glorious then was assigned to pick up the fighters she had just dropped off. In return, battleships almost never succeeded in closing into gun-range of carriers. World War II: The cargo ship (3,546 GRT, 1906) struck a mine and sank in the, The cargo ship (5,393 or 5,106 GRT, 1918) ran aground in the, World War II: The cargo ship (5,820 GRT, 1921) was torpedoed, shelled and sunk in the Atlantic Ocean west of. referenced. World War II: The cargo ship (810 GRT, 1933) was scuttled at Dieppe, France. World War II: The tanker (2,454 GRT, 1888) was sunk as a block ship at Dieppe, France. World War II: The auxiliary minesweeper (675 GRT, 1911) was scuttled at Cherborug, France. The 17th June 1940 saw one of the most horrific events of World War II and the single worst maritime disaster in British history. The year before, his parents had pulled him out of his prep school in St Johns Wood, North London, and deposited him with his grandparents in Lingfield, Surrey. World War II: The cargo ship (1,927 GRT, 1922) was scuttled as a blockship in Churchill Sound, World War II: The cargo ship (6,701 GRT, 1918) was torpedoed and sunk in the Atlantic Ocean west of Land's End, United Kingdom (, World War II: The cargo ship (4,201 GRT, 1911) was torpedoed and sunk in the Atlantic Ocean south west of Ireland (, World War II: The cargo ship (1,291 GRT, 1913) was torpedoed and sunk in the Atlantic Ocean south west of Land's End (. Four chapters are personal accounts from survivors or their close relatives. Chapter 5 focuses on the actual sinking of the Lancastria while Chapter 11 focuses on its aftermath. Within half an hour, four of the crew members on his boat had slipped into unconsciousness and died. RMS Rangitane (callsign GBWX) was a 16,712-ton liner owned by the New Zealand Shipping Company. All nine crew were rescued by the trawler, The coaster (270 GRT) ran ashore on Kalder Steel, off, The cargo ship (3,303 or 3,240 GRT, 1913) struck a submerged wreck in the, The coaster (121 GRT, 1918) sank off the mouth of the. DOyly kicked Heath off the ship and departed on missions to ferry Royal Air Force Gladiators and Hurricanes to Norway. I was barefoot, wearing pink pyjamas and my life-jacket, when I walked into the Central Hotel in Glasgow. Rather than disengage from the hopeless fight, the Acasta peeled off from the Glorious and valiantly charged the Gneisenau. This left Colin sitting up to his chest in water with only the lifeboats buoyancy tanks preventing the boat from vanishing beneath the waves. It was like sitting in a giant bathtub full of freezing water, he recalls. The Sinking of the Lancastria Stan Scislowski On Monday, June 17, 1940, the Cunard Liner, Lancastria, pressed into war service as a troopship was anchored . Below the waves, however, the convoy was being trailed by U-48, a German U-boat. It was in the 1970s a challenge, but I eventually, after many disappointing follows, found a second hand copy, with a book dealer. All six crew survived. Wynn does not clarify what materials he utilized from these sources and there are no footnotes, in-text citations, or endnotes. But once he had returned home, the subject of his ordeal became taboo. List of shipwrecks in June 1940 - Wikipedia List of shipwrecks in June 1940 View history The list of shipwrecks in June 1940 includes ships sunk, foundered, grounded, or otherwise lost during June 1940 . Once his infection had cleared, he was told to get out of bed. Nevertheless, within hours of disembarking troops at Liverpool on June 14th, Lancastria was reassigned, along with the 20,341 gross tons liner Franconia, to Operation Aerial, the evacuation of British civilians, embassy staff, and support troops from France. The Lancastria Tragedy: Sinking and Cover-Up, June 1940. I could see people dying around me. She was built in 1936 and sailed for 30 years before retiring in 1967. They included Pioneer and Royal Army Service Corps, Royal Army Ordnance Corps, Royal Engineers, and Royal Air Force personnel, some Polish and Czech troops, civilian refugees, embassy staff, employees of Fairey Aviation of Belgium and their families. 11, two out of 11 children remained. Fateful: The S.S City of Benares, passenger ship is launched in 1936 and would later be sunk while carrying 90 children aged five to 15. as the source. World War II: The cargo ship (440 GRT, 1903) was bombed and sunk in the Mediterranean Sea 13 nautical miles (24km) north of Tobruk, The troopship (2,427 GRT, 1928) suffered an engine room fire, exploded and sank in the, World War II: The cargo ship (4,127 GRT, 1920) was torpedoed, shelled and sunk in the Atlantic Ocean south west of Ireland (, World War II: The cargo ship (3,214 GRT, 1928) was torpedoed and sunk in the. 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. Two chapters briefly detail the extraction of Allied forces from Europe in Operations Cycle (Le Havre, France), Operation Dynamo (Dunkirk); and Operation Aerial (St. Nazaire, Nantes, Cherbourg, and seven other French ports). I felt responsible for losing them and a totally ridiculous guilt came over me., For a few days, reporters made a big fuss of the heroic boy who had helped others in his lifeboat to survive. It was his mother who came to collect him. With his red life-jacket already on over his pyjamas, he headed up the stairs. 10 Historical Prophecies That Actually Came True 10- RMS Titanic Disaster. And when he arrived back on British soil, everything seemed to have a dream-like quality. Kenneth Lewis was only 14 years old, His Brother Raymond 15. I stayed on board the ship in 2011 and have always found the history of the ship to be fascinating. World War II: Operation Dynamo: The fishing vessel (39 GRT) was sunk in the North Sea at Dunkerque, France, by enemy action. please notify usmm.org @ comcast.net, Taken to Norway; Soviet Unio; Norway; released NHF members are being converted to members of the Naval Institute. All morning, Colin continued to heave corpses away from his boat. 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