Posted on 06/13/2015 7:34:16 AM PDT by the scotsman
'Seventy five years after the sinking of the Lancastria - Britain's worst maritime disaster in history - why is the tragedy largely forgotten? And what do those touched by the catastrophe want now?
"The trouble with the story of the Lancastria is it doesn't fit with the grand narrative of that period - the miraculous evacuation of Dunkirk, and the Battle of Britain," reflects Mark Hirst.
"No amount of spin can turn the story of the Lancastria into something triumphant."
Mark - a former broadcast journalist and co-founder of the Lancastria Association of Scotland - has studied the life of his grandfather Walter Hirst, who survived the sinking.
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. Less than 2,500 people survived.
The Lancastria was the largest loss of life from a single engagement in World War Two and is also the largest loss of life in British maritime history - greater than the Titanic and Lusitania combined. But it is a largely forgotten chapter in British history, a fact that leaves survivors and relatives aggrieved.'
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.co.uk ...
Actually the torpedoing of the Wilhelm Gustloff led to the death of over 9000.
But that wasn’t a “British Maritime Loss” was it?
The wording can be taken either way, but I get your point.
The horrors of that war are hard to comprehend.
Correct. Soviet sub sank the Wilhelm Gustloff—as many as 9,400 people were killed on 1/30/45:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Wilhelm_Gustloff
Largest loss of life in the sinking of a ship in history.
“The Lancastria was the largest loss of life from a single engagement in World War Two”
this is wrong unless author claims he made an error and meant to say something else.
“””When we have tried, they (the government) have said it (documents on the Lancastria) are secret. I can’t think, after all of these years, it can still be a secret.”””
What could they be hiding still?
It would have been more correct to say that the sinking of the Lancastria represents the largest loss of life from a British maritime incident.
Possibly, a British military engagement might fit as a descriptor, but I would think there were British battles where more than 4,000 men were killed, maybe even on British soil, with all their civil wars, but I really don’t know.
And over half of those were children
Good point, and many war wounded as well.
The year 1945 saw the largest number of military and civilian people killed worldwide than any other year in history is my guess.
And many, many children are in that number.
this is wrong unless author claims he made an error and meant to say something else.
He probably meant to say that it was the largest loss of life by the British.
I was just about to bring that up. I’m thinking too that that was the only Soviet action by one of their subs in the whole of WW2 - I could be mistaken (maybe).
and when did Dunkirk become a positive story?
When the Germans failed to capture or destroy the entire British Expeditionary Force?
Certainly the RESCUE was heroic. The predicament that gave rise to its necessity was not.
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Right now I'm reading (a condensed version of) "Rules of Encounter", by William P. Kennedy.
Its claim appears to be that Churchill, et al, were involved in a plot to offer up the Lusitania as a sacrifice -- to force the USA to enter the war against Germany.
Courtesy ping to #18, to you, the O. P.
Turning a strategic withdraw (retreat) into a victory was impressive
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