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The Lancastria: What happened and why is the tragedy described as forgotten?
2024 marks 85 years since Britain's worst maritime disaster - but little is know about the wartime sinking of the Lancastria in 1940.
It is estimated between 4,000 and 7,000 people died when a rescue mission for British troops went wrong.
What was the Lancastria?
The Cunard ship - originally named Tyrrhenia - sailed scheduled routes between Liverpool and New York until 1932, before she was then used as a cruise ship in the Mediterranean and Northern Europe.
As the Second World War broke out in September 1939, Lancastria was in the Bahamas. She was ordered to sail from Nassau to New York for refitting as she had been requisitioned as a troopship, becoming HMT Lancastria.
She made a number of sailings during the War after being refitted in Liverpool, before, in June 1940, she was sent to the French port of Saint-Nazaire to help with evacuating British nationals and troops.
What happened on 17 June 1940?
The Lancastria formed part of Operation Ariel, the effort to evacuate British civilians, troops and embassy staff from Western France, two weeks after the evacuation of Dunkirk.
It is said that the Captain was ordered to take as many people as possible on board due to the loss of other evacuation vessels, and an estimated 5000-7000 people were on board despite the ship only being built for around 2,500.
While still at anchor, the ship was dive bombed by Nazi planes, and capsized and sank within 20 minutes, killing at least 4,000 people.
The loss of life equates to more than the Titanic and Lusitania combined.
There were 2,477 survivors - with many taken aboard other British and Allied evacuation vessels - the trawler HMT Cambridgeshire rescued 900.
Why is not much known about it?
Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, ordered a blackout on media outlets reporting on the tragedy, as the British government feared it would further lower British morale, and provide Germany with propaganda.
Media outlets eventually reported on the incident at the end of July, around five weeks after it happened, although Churchill's D-Notice preventing publication of official documents of evidence is not set to expire until 2040.
