663 Artisan Works Company,
Royal Engineers
Major Richard George Morgan, or "Vingt Cinq" to his men, had arranged for 663 Artisan Works Company, Royal Engineers official company records and files to be transported back to the UK via another vessel, the SS Marlew, along with eight men from the company. The rest of the company were to board the Lancastria at 11:30, on the 17th of June 1940.
663 had arrived in France in January 1940 and had busied themselves on constructing a military airfield at Bougenais outside the old French colonial city of Nantes.
 Major George 'Vingt Cinq' Morgan, MC, Commanding Officer of 663 Artisan Works Company, Royal Engineers - (Photograph by Sapper Percy Brown, Ex-663 Company, Lancastria survivor) - Morgan won his Military Cross in November 1918 when he commanded a Royal Field Artillery unit which provided close fire support over two days to advancing infantry whilst under heavy German shelling.
According to some of the men from this Royal Engineers Company, Nantes had a long association with the slave trade and when the men of 663 arrived many local people must have thought it was a return to the 'good old days'.
A few days prior to receiving orders to evacuate 663 to the coast some of the men heard a BBC world service broadcast in which Winston Churchill, the British Prime Minister stated "The British Expeditionary Force has been completely and successfully evacuated from France". For the 250 men of 663, not to mention the 150,000 remaining troops, the remnants of the British Expeditionary Force, this came as a great surprise and worry. Rumours were circulating that the Germans had taken Le Mans, less than 100 miles away. There was certainly an increase in traffic on the roads.
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Above, 663 AW Company, RE before deployment to the Faroes, July 1940. This photograph includes 92 replacement sappers for the men who were lost aboard Lancastria.
Once the order came to evacuate, the stores were flung open to the men to take what they wanted. The rest was covered in creosote and burned on the spot. Destroying valuable kit had a profound affect on many of the men.
They had arrived in St. Nazaire on the 16th of June amidst an air raid and many had spent the night sheltering under doorways, listening to tracer bullets rattle off the roofs and down onto the cobbled streets below.
SS Titan which ferried the men of 663 Company, Royal Engineers out to the Lancastria. For more than 90 out of the 242 men it was to be their last ever trip.
On the morning of the 17th they were lined up and a roll was taken. Then the company marched down to the quayside where they waited some considerable time before being embarked on a small French vessel, the SS Titan, that would transfer them to the Lancastria. As they left the port thousands of men could still be seen lining the quayside waiting for their turn. For those aboard the SS Titan their elation at finally leaving France was tinged with a knowledge that they may well have to fight Germans on home soil within a matter of weeks.
As they came alongside the grey hull of the Lancastria, hundreds of men could be seen lining the guardrail. As the Titan manoeuvred into place a Loading Officer shouted down to Major Morgan that the vessel had over 7,200 men aboard and could take no more. Morgan immediately responded and shouted back up that another 242 weren't going to make any difference. The company clambered aboard. They finally believed they were on their way home. More than 90 of them would never make it.
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