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Sir,--Your correspondent, T. Roy Sparkes, referring to loss of life at sea,
catalogues some disasters but omits any mention of what surely must be the
worst of all.
I refer, of course, to the bombing and sinking of the Lancastria, crowded
with troops in the evacuation of France from St Mazaire just 59 years ago
this month.
I don't know whether the true figure of lives lost in that disaster has ever
been revealed and I have read various accounts between 7,000 and 17,000.
Certainly, there are over 5,000 graves in the cemetery at St Mazaire and
they are just the bodies which were recovered.
Visiting the Maritime Museum in Southampton some years ago, I saw a model of
Lancastria in a glass case but nothing to indicate the sad fate of that
ship, nor did the person in charge appear to have any knowledge of it.
It will never be forgotten by those who did their best to save a few lives
and in particular the weird monotone sound composed of the shouts and cries
of 10,000 men as they fought for life and drowned in a sea of black furnace
fuel oil.
Yours etc,
FRED A. STANLEY,
St Peter Street,
Winchester.
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