THE SINKING OF THE LANCASTRIA

How much do you remember of World War 2? If you are not old enough to remember then how much do you know of it? Well, it doesn’t really matter whether you were born before, during or after the war because the truth is, I strongly suspect, that not many people today, whatever their age, are aware of many more than a few incidents. The withdrawal of the British Expeditionary Force from Dunkirk? Yes, they made a film about it. The Battle of Britain? Yes, they made several films about it. The D Day landings? Yes, they made a couple of films about it. The landings at Arnhem? Yes, they made a film about it. The Battle of the Bulge? Yes, they made a film about it.

World War 2 lasted for about six years ending with the conquest of Japan in August 1945. That part of the war, far away from Europe, is also largely remembered through certain events, or sweeps of events, that include the attack on Pearl Harbour, the fall of Singapore, the Battle of Midway and, of course the A Bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, that brought it all to a rapid halt; all of these have been lodged in our memories largely by films – although the horror of the final events was so powerful that it was embedded in the consciousness of the world from the moment that newsreels showed us the mushroom cloud and the shreds of those two cities.

It was the newsreel and the film documentary that added an element to our memories that took us beyond the recall of the major events. We also remember the war in Europe from the news films showing the bombing of Dresden and the scenes encountered by those entering the concentration camps and we also remember the war with Japan, fought largely by US troops, from countless movie clips showing the fearful battles, often hand-to-hand, over control of the Pacific islands.

It is those memorable events, the events that could be turned into the basis for exciting films, that really define our memories of World War 2. Yet if we think of the Battle of Britain and the D Day landings as high points in our knowledge of WW2 what about the space in between? That period of very nearly four years? Did nothing happen?

I don’t intend to attempt to answer my question here but the book by Max Hastings called ‘Finest Years. Churchill as Warlord 1940-1945’, will give an idea of how much one doesn’t know. Apart from exposing the vast gaps in my knowledge it was this book that made me realise just how close we came to losing that war.

Personally until recently I have never questioned my view of that war. It was a simplistic view, almost the view of a child. I had not realised the extent to which what I knew was governed by what I was permitted to know. If you look up to the top of this page you will see another headed ‘About Keith Diggle’ and in the first paragraph you will see that for most of the war I lived in Bristol; of my experience there I say, ‘I was familiar with the sound of sirens that indicated the imminent presence of enemy bombers or their departure and knew well the sound of those bombers as they flew overhead’. Fairly soon after the time in 1940 when German bombers tried very hard to bomb the hell out of London they went on to bomb the hell out of Coventry and then they went on to bomb the hell out of Bristol. That’s when I stored up the memory of the sound made by a large number of aircraft engines high up in the sky.

The strange thing is that no secret was made of the fact that London and then Coventry had been bashed to blazes by the Luftwaffe. It was in the papers and on British Movietone News in the cinemas. By the time Bristol got its bashing the powers that were had decided that by allowing the general public to read about and see the results of what ‘Jerry’ was doing they were helping him achieve his aim of spreading alarm and despondency amongst us (while knocking out our industries). So Bristol’s bashing was kept quiet. The most that appeared in the newspapers was a report of a raid on a ‘city in the west country’ and it was probably no bad thing that it was given a very low profile. We Bristolians walked the streets after the raids and saw the pavements turned into a sort of street level boot fair with the relicts of bombed houses, china, cutlery, anything of value that survived, for sale. So we knew but few others did and that was certainly no bad thing – it did mean that this wholesale destruction was not forced into the country’s collective memory and did not depress anyone beyond the circle who could not be protected from depression.

The control of information was by that time an accepted part of government strategy. Then we all knew about Dunkirk – as we do now. It was the June 1940 and Jerry, pouring into Holland, Belgium and France, looked set to wipe out the British troops who were already there. Our troops got out, some 330,000 of them, via the beaches of Dunkirk, quite amazingly well – no more need be said, we all know the story, we’ve seen the film. Winston Churchill assured the nation that ‘the British Expeditionary Force has been completely and successfully evacuated from France’ and the myth that turned defeat into what was almost thought of as victory began. What Winny didn’t say was that there remained in France around 150,000 more of our troops strung out from Champagne to the west coast and they had to be got out as soon as possible. It was as well we didn’t know.

Vessels were prepared in England and were sent out to pick up the men who were racing to points on the west coast of France. One such ship, the largest, was the former Cunard liner, the five decked 16,243 ton, Lancastria, converted into a troop ship. She sailed for St-Nazaire, on the mouth of the river Loire and started to take on board the troops who had managed to reach what they believed was the gateway to ‘Blighty’. The ship also accepted the British civilians, men, women and children, who were living their lives in France, usually because they were involved with British companies. No-one knows exactly how many people were loaded but estimates put the figure at around 7000.

On 17 June 1940 the Lancastria, before it could make for England, was hit by four bombs dropped by a German bomber. The ship listed and then turned over in the water. One of the bombs exploded in a hold containing some eight hundred RAF men – all were killed. Another hit the ship’s hospital. A ruptured boiler killed people by scalding. Thousands jumped into the water and attempted to swim away from the sinking boat. The water became covered with oil, 14000 tons of it, escaping from the ship’s tanks which coated the swimmers and then caught on fire from the bullets fired by German planes that then started to strafe the struggling, helpless people.

As it had done with the bombing of Bristol and no doubt many other places, the British government banned any mention in the media of this incident. Some six weeks after the event some photographs, taken by a survivor, appeared in the New York Times and an awareness of what had happened began to grow in Britain but it did not develop a significant presence in the consciousness of the public and even now, after the publication of books and a TV documentary, mention the name Lancastria and you are unlikely to be met with a sign of recognition. People will speak of the sinking of the Lusitania in 1915 when 1198 people were killed and of the Titanic disaster when 1517 people lost their lives. The memory of the Lancastria’s sinking and the far greater loss of life is known only to a few.

At St. Katharine Cree Church in the City of London an annual memorial service is held in June. There is a brass plaque on the wall saying:

TO THE GLORY OF GOD AND IN PROUD MEMORY OF MORE THAN 4000 PEOPLE WHO DIED WITH THE TROOPSHIP LANCASTRIA AND TO HONOUR ALL WHO TOOK PART IN THE WORK OF RESCUE

Author’s note: I am a collector of artefacts that involve the use of butterfly wings in their decoration; they featured widely in the souvenirs that travellers to Central and South America would bring home in the early part of the 20th century. Nowadays, of course, their importation into the UK is banned. Mine are all quite old, therefore. One of my items is an ashtray that would have been sold on board the Lancastria when it was serving its time as a cruise ship long before WW2. I was wholly unaware of the part played in history by this ship until – just a few weeks before I wrote this, I typed its name into Google, and as a result bought Jonathan Fenby’s book. As you might imagine, this cheap little souvenir is of considerably greater value to me now. It is this ashtray that I have used to illustrate this piece.

For those who would like to know more I recommend the book ‘The Sinking of the Lancastria: The Twentieth Century’s Deadliest Naval Disaster and Churchill’s Cover-Up’ by Jonathan Fenby. Pub. Da Capa Press 2005.