Most people would assume that the worst disaster in British maritime history was the sinking of
RMS Titanic, but unfortunately, that title would belong to the sinking of HMT Lancastria
which was bombed during the second world war, killing an estimated 4 - 6 thousand people.
The number can only be estimated because no one really knows the exact number of people
who were on the vessel at the time. Nevertheless, the tragedy would be one
of the worst events in maritime history, but very few people today actually know about it.
The ship was constructed by the William Beardmore shipbuilders of Glasgow, Scotland for the Cunard
Line, she was launched in 1922 and named Tyrrhenia, after the Tyrrhenian Sea off
the coast of Italy. The ship had a length of 578 feet, or 176 meters, and beam of 70 feet, which is
a little over 21 meters in width. With 7 decks and size of 16,243 gross register tons, RMS Tyrrhenia
was built for the North Atlantic run, ferrying passengers from Liverpool to New York and back.
She had a capacity of 1,300 passengers separated into three classes, and held a crew of 300.
In 1924, Cunard renamed the ship RMS Lancastria
since passengers had difficulty pronouncing the name Tyrrhenia,
and they reduced her to a 2-class ship in order to improve the overall experience for the passengers.
Lancastria continued her passenger run until 1932 when the Great Depression slowed down Atlantic
travel, she was then put on duty as a cruise ship, taking people to the sight-seeing waters of the
Mediterranean and of Northern Europe. With the onset of World War II,
Lancastria was requisitioned by the British Admiralty as a troopship in March of 1940.
Her hull was repainted a dull grey and she became known as HMT Lancastria, an acronym
for His Majesty’s Troopship. She often transported troops from the UK to the European mainland.
Soon after the events of Dunkirk, Lancastria was re-assigned to Operation Aerial. She was sent to
Saint-Nazaire, France to help evacuate both troops and citizens from the encroaching axis forces.
The captain of Lancastria was instructed to load as many people as possible and join a small convoy
of troopships protected by destroyers. Many reports agree that more than 5,000 passengers
had boarded the vessel, some say as many as 8,000 people got on the troopship that day.
Around 2 pm German bombers attacked the troopship Oronsay. Lancastria’s Captain
decided that instead of setting sail immediately he would wait until Oronsay was repaired and a
strong escort of destroyers would arrive. But just after 3 pm, more bombers flew in
and aimed their fury at Lancastria. The planes let loose a torrent of bombs.
First Officer Harry Grattidge described the scene, “she bucked and shuddered like an animal in pain”.
One of the bombs had landed in a cargo hold carrying 800 Royal Air Force personnel.
The ship quickly began to take on water, the men aboard rushed to help the women and children out
of the vessel, chaos erupted onboard as the great vessel capsized in under 20 minutes.
Survivors climbed up onto the hull of the ship, waiting for assistance.
Eyewitnesses reported that after a while they began to sing in order to maintain morale.
Private Tom Woods, writing to his girlfriend (later wife) in October 1940, described the
devastation that followed: “I dived into the water, it was very difficult to swim owing to
the amount of oil on the water.” He saw a small tugboat nearby. “I made straight for it, after
swimming for about three-quarters of an hour in which time I was asked for help a good many times,
I was feeling tired I thought I could not swim any farther my limbs were going stiff,
I thought of home, I struggled and struggled until I managed to turn on my back, then I
could hear in the distance voices, ‘I am hit, I am hit’ I knew then we had been machine-gunned”
The destroyer escorts soon arrived and rescue operations began. There were 2,477 survivors
and they were not only troops, but also British and French civilians,
innocent people such as women and children, and infants as well. However most of the
passengers aboard the vessel didn’t make it, many had died from the initial bombing,
others were trapped inside the ship as it was claimed by the sea.
Fearing that the disaster might damage British morale, Winston Churchill issued a ‘D’ notice
and had the information suppressed from publication. “When this news came to me
in the quiet Cabinet Room during the afternoon,” Churchill recounted, “I forbade its publication,
saying ‘The newspapers have got quite enough disaster for today at least.’” But on the 24th
of July, the information leaked to the press. In the coming days and weeks, the bodies of the
victims washed ashore and were buried in graves behind a nearby sea wall.
The wreck remains in the waters off the coast, protected from recreational divers.
On the 17th of June 1988, a memorial was unveiled in Saint-Nazaire honoring the more than 4,000 who
lost their lives. The wreck still remains off the coast, and one of the last remaining artifacts
of the ship is its original RMS Tyrrhenia bell that now sits in St. Katherine Cree in London.
The sinking of Lancastria is a disaster not often told, but it’s one we should never forget.
War is a violent, destructive act of power and human savagery. While many can chalk up such
loss of human life to the inevitable brutality of war, let’s not forget that war is not an external
affliction to the human race, it is not an act of God like inclement weather or an earthquake,
it is a concept we conceived and one that we take part in.
At least three times the amount of people died in the Lancastria sinking than did on Titanic.
Innocent people’s lives were sacrificed so our democratic countries can enjoy freedom,
and it was a sacrifice made even by the small infants held tightly by the fear-stricken
mothers who watched the water rush in, as Lancastria was consumed by the sea.