Next week the Lancastria Association of Scotland will hand in a petition to Downing Street in an effort to have the victims of the UK's worst maritime tragedy properly remembered and their final resting place protected.
The petition reads as follows:
"We, the undersigned, call on the British Government through the offices of the Prime Minister to designate the wreck of the troopship Lancastria an official maritime site/war grave by means of the Protection of Military Remains Act 1986 or by the introduction of a Statutory Instrument which would allow the site to be formally designated by the British Government in recognition of the sacrifice of an estimated 4000 lives, mostly troops of the British Expeditionary Force, who were lost on 17th June 1940. This petition, which has attracted signatures from across the world, calls on the Government to finally and formally acknowledge the loss made and to bring about official designation for the wreck of Lancastria."
Incredible as it may seem, the wreck of the LANCASTRIA is not protected as, or formally recognised as, a war grave by the UK. For years the Association has tried to bring to the forefront the need to have the vessel declared an official war grave. They also wish to have a memorial erected to mark what was the single biggest loss of life at sea in the Second World War.
Why has the loss of the LANCASTRIA and her thousands of victims never been properly recognised by the British Government? To answer that we need to go back to the era in which they perished.
Losses on this scale were very often, if not nearly always, hushed up. At the least, the scale of loss was held back. Morale was everything to the UK, fighting what at times must have seemed a never ending war to defeat the forces of Nazism. In the case of the LANCASTRIA a total ban was imposed by Britain's wartime leader.
The Association says in its website:
* On learning of the disaster late on the 17th of June Winston Churchill banned all news coverage of it for fear it would damage public morale further, following the capitulation of France which also occurred that day. Churchill later claimed he simply forgot to lift the ban. An American newspaper was the first to publish details of the loss of Lancastria late in July 1940.
To this day it would appear, the British government does not whole-heartedly accept the loss nor the need for formal recognition through war grave designation. The French government threw a 200 metre exclusion zone around the vessel in 2006 to protect it from divers and looting. The Association says that the UK government claimed credit for this development despite papers obtained under Freedom of Information revealing "their growing annoyance with the issue".
The Association hopes that as a result of their petition and efforts, the UK government will at last afford the dignity and respect that LANCASTRIA and her thousands of victims deserve. So far they have made great progress with the Scottish government, and in 2005 MSPs from Scotland’s 6 political parties signed a specially made book of condolence in memory of the victims. Two parliamentary motions in the name of Christine Grahame MSP aimed at highlighting the sacrifice also received cross party support.
The Association also wants a memorial to be erected in the grounds of the Golden Jubilee Hospital at Dalmuir, Clydebank. On this site once stood the mighty shipyard of Wm Beardmore, the shipbuilders who built the liner back in 1919 for the Anchor Line of Glasgow.
A brief history of the LANCASTRIA
She was built, as stated above, in Dalmuir, near Clydebank in the then modern shipyard of Wm Beardmore, part of a huge empire of industries that included shipbuilding, armaments, vehicles and aircraft manufacture. Her original name was TYRRHENIA, and was laid down for the Anchor Line, a respected and venerable Glasgow shipping company. By this time time Anchor was owned by Cunard and many of the vessels built for each company would work for either or both of them. TYRRHENIA began life as a Cunarder as her ownership was transferred to the Cunard books as she was building.
By all accounts her early years were not remarkable. It is said that her name was changed to LANCASTRIA two years after she went into service because American's had difficulty getting their tongues round her original name. That may be true, but another story is that she had earned the nickname 'Soup Tureen' - which was hardly flattering.
She did not last long as a liner, Cunard deciding after only two voyages that she would be better suited in the cruise market, and so after a refit in 1924 and gaining her new name she began the role that by and large she maintained up until the outbreak of war in 1939 and by 1940 she had yet another new role - troopship.
On the morning of 17th June 1940 she found herself off the coast of France, waiting at anchor to board troops, the remnants of the British Expeditionary force. Dunkirk had happened two weeks prior to this. You can read a full account of the boarding at the Association's website, but to cut the story short, she had to load as many men as could struggle aboard her. How many is unclear, some estimates say as high as 9000, and it may have been, but whatever the number, it was well in excess of her accepted maximum of 3000. By the afternoon the ship was swarming with men packed on her decks, holds and cabins, and then the German aircraft came in.
The attack was swift, the effects devastating. Within minutes LANCASTRIA was ablaze in parts and sinking. Men scrambled for boats, for the water, or clung to her hull as she slowly turned, dying in the waters. Harrowing pictures of the foundering vessel show men spiked over the great undersides like starlings. Knowing their time was up, the men began to sing defiantly as they clung to the ship, its propellers now exposed.
And as the ship rolled, the song they sang was 'Roll Out The Barrel'...
http://www.lancastria.org.uk/
What are your thoughts about wreck diving and removing artifacts? 
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