A British troop ship, the Lancastria, was sunk at the mouth of the Loire on June 17 1940. An estimated 5,000 men died, but after Dunkirk it was considered too damaging to release details. "The newspapers have got quite enough disaster for today at least," Churchill said. The Lancastria was the biggest maritime disaster in British history; more people were killed in the sinking than in the Titanic and Lusitania disasters put together
