The Lancastria Disaster
My great uncle Sgt Thomas Baldwin was one of those lost when HMT Lancastria sank with great loss of life on 17 June 1940. She was anchored off Saint Nazaire about 3 miles from the shore when she took 4 bomb hits from a Ju 88 and sank in 20 mins. The background to these events follows. In late May 1940 the BEF (and Britain) was comprehensively defeated by Heinz Guderian’s blitzkrieg. Everyone has heard of the subsequent Dunkirk evacuation (operation Dynamo) which rescued nearly 340,000 men. Most equipment and stores were lost. A positive spin was put on Dynamo to hide the appalling scale of the disaster. This was followed by operation Cycle, which evacuated from Le Havre, and operation Ariel which evacuated from Atlantic ports, operations which are not so well-known. They recovered a further 190,000 troops. These evacuations were at the cost of heavy losses, but the recovery of over half a million men could be considered worth the cost if the war was to be continued. The Lancastria disa...