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The sinking of R.M.S. Lancastria, St. Nazaire 17th June

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thecaptain51

master brummie
I live in Italy now and thought I had covered most subjects about WW2, I was in for a shock.
I was attending a class to improve my Italian(trying to talk in italian with out my Brummie accent!), in the class was an English woman, she was about my age, her name is Ann Sweeney. She has an accent that I could kill for (Private school) . We got talking and after numerous conversations, she told me her father had died last year and that he had lived in Canada, I then asked her" How old was he? She told me. I asked "did he serve in WW2" and she said "Yes".

One day, after one of the lessons we went for a coffee and she began to tell me about The Lancastria and what happened to her father while he was on board, I was flabbergasted as the story was unrolled to me. The Lancastria came under attack from The Luftwaffe as she was about to leave for England, it was packed to the rafters with soldiers, Royal Airforce personnel and refugees, a Stuka dive bomber got in close to her and bombed the ship. Absolute pandemonium broke out as the ship began to list, the German planes then began machine gunning anybody who was in the water. The French locals came out in their boats to rescue as many people as they could also supported by the boats already in the harbour.

Churchill did not want the British people to be aware of what had happened to The Lancastria, censorship at its worst. It was The Americans who let the world know what had happened. It was a bigger tragedy than The Titanic, the full numbers of dead will never be known, but approximately 4,000+ lost their lives that day. The bodies of dead British soldiers/airmen were being washed up on the beaches for months afterwards.

Did anybody on this site, have any family on The Lancastria and would like to tell their own personel story about this event.

This site below is Joe Sweeneys story about what happened
https://www.lancastria.org.uk/joe-sweeney/

The picture of R.M.S. Lancastria and survivors
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDOE0zpAxXA

The story of what happened
https://www.squidoo.com/lancastria

The captain
 
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The site of the Lancastria is not protected as a war grave. The British Government has repeatedly refused requests for the site to be given that status. The records were unsealed in 2005 when the first petitions were put it. The request was rejected then and rejected again in 2007. It is suspected this is because the ship was overloaded and they do not want to be sued. The British givernment also refused to issue a medal to survivors.

The Scottish Assembly are fighting the decision, and talking about producing a pack for schools to ensure that the Lancastria is not forgotten. The Assembly also issued a commemorative medal for survivors.

The French Government has placed an exclusion zone around the wreck to protect it.
 
Hi the wifes Grandfather was killed on the lancastria, Andrew james Doherty forty years of age, he enlisted in the pioneer corps in derry northern Ireland where he lived, he left a very large family to be raised by his widow, he is listed on the memorial along with a lot of his co at Dunkirk, a terrible tragedy. if anybody is interested the lancastria society in Scotland will help get a medal
edd
 
Many thanks Captain for sharing the memories of Joe Sweeney with us. The story of the Lusitania is a very little known one and shouldn't be forgotten. French TV recently put a program on about it. Why does the Gov still want to keep it's secrets ?
 
Glennys Jean

The Government, I believe could be sued for overloading The Lancastria, if they go public, I am only guessing. But what a slap in the face of those who died, and the families brought up with out knowing their fathers, and only having a black and white photo of them.
 
I read this story with a great sense of "incredulity", that British establishment can act in such an arrogant and pompous way to our revered war dead. Paul Stacey
 
paul stacey said:
I read this story with a great sense of "incredulity", that British establishment can act in such an arrogant and pompous way to our revered war dead. Paul Stacey
Click to expand...

Paul
So we dont go off topic:

1. The original thread deals with the sinking of The Lancastria, how I found out about it by word of mouth from a woman who is the daughter of one of the survivors. The last paragraph deals with the then government covering the episode up " Because of the effect on public moral".

2. The second post that I put up, deals with the Bloody(sorry about the word) mindedness of successive governments in not recognising what happened that day and keeping it away from those who were not directly involved.
Not recognising the Lancastria as a war grave, is, beyond words. The French have done more for the Lancastria survivors and their families, than any British Government, I never thought I would say that.
"I have come to bury Cesare, not praise him". Fast forward to the 90s and beyond, I am not going to bring up a certain government giving free passes to killers, and then prosecuting their own troops, because "allegedly" somebody had an eye on the future as a Peace Ambassador. I apologise 100% for this comment.

3. This site, has given a voice to the British soldiers, airmen, sailors and refugees who died on R.M.S. Lancastria, also to the survivors who have passed away since the event happened.

Thanks The captain
 
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I consider myself quite a history buff, I have to say I had never heard of the "RMS Lancastria action", until this thread. I have always been mystified by the thinking of MOD civil servants, in regard to issuing medals to some, not others , in recognising some actions, not others. It seems to me as I get older that the more remote the powers to be were, in regard to actually being in any sort of military or fighting themselves, the more pompous and arrogant they are to the people who actually were. I feel sorry for the family's of the lost, and wounded as they all deserve to be recognised officially.
 
Paul

I remember reading on here how long it took for "The Government" to recognise actions like Palestine, Aden etc......I was very happy for "The Old Sweats" on this site to be finally publically accepted about what they had done, with the issue of their medals.
The worse sea disaster during WW2, happened in The Baltic Sea 1945. A German ship Called "Wilhelm Gustloff" was torpedoed by a Russian submarine, the German ship was excessively packed, I believe there were 10,000 aboard, which included wounded German soldiers, Refugees etc....trying to escape from the Russians. I think only 900 were rescued.
Thanks very much for your interest in RMS Lancastria.
 
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The Admin team of this forum decide what is off topic or not and IMHO this is off topic because the topic heading is 'the sinking of R.M.S Lancastria'

I am closing this thread for discussion by the Admin team, . Thanks Alberta..
 
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