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It was the greatest maritime disaster Britain has ever seen and yet the full tragic story of the sinking of the troop ship the Lancastria was submerged for 65 years.
It is only now that the full horror is told in a new book by distinguished author Jonathan Fenby.
Just two weeks before the disaster, Prime Minister Winston Churchill hailed the evacuation from Dunkirk as one of the greatest victories of the Second World War. But there were still some 150,000 troops stuck in France.
As the German advance thundered west, these Allied soldiers and airmen were faced with a mad dash to the coast in the hope that a troop ship awaited them there.
One such vessel was the Lancastria - a 16,000 ton liner which had been pressed into service and was now anchored off the French port of St Nazaire.
Overcrowded with some 5,000 British troops and civilians, including women and children, the huge liner was bombed by the Luftwaffe and sank in under 10 minutes.
A large contingent of ground crew from RAF Digby died when the ship went down and a museum dedicated to their sacrifice can be found at the base near Lincoln.
Because of the overcrowding on board the Lancastria before the attack, it is not known exactly how many people lost their lives on that fatal day of June 17, 1940, but the total number of casualties is today thought to be in the region of 4,000.
This equates to a death toll greater than that of the Lusitania and the Titanic combined.
But a news blackout imposed by Churchill ensured that the British public would never know the full horror of what happened on that day.
The story has never fully been told as because of fears that news of the disaster would have a negative effect on British morale, Churchill ordered a total ban on media coverage of the tragedy and the incident was effectively covered up.
The survivors returned unable to tell anyone of the terrible ordeal which they had endured.
Two days after the disaster, a correspondent for The Times wrote an account of what happened, reporting that there had been 5,000 on board and that about half of them had been saved.
It told of a major who had a miraculous escape when a bomb dropped through his cabin and of a lieutenant who had been standing a few feet from the first bomb but got out unscathed and of civilians who swam to safety.
But because of Churchill's imposition of censorship, the story was not printed.
Telegrams from the military authorities simply told relatives that their loved ones were missing in action without giving details of where they had been lost.
It is an epic story of great loss, tempered with acts of extreme heroism and sacrifice and one of human endurance and fortitude in the face of unthinkable odds.
Author Jonathan Fenby recreates this episode and features the stories told by survivors for the first time in 50 years.
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