The Sinking of the Lancastria

After Dunkirk, tens of thousands of British soldiers and Allied civilians remained to be evacuated from the ports of western France: this was Operation Aerial. On 17 June 1940, at Saint-Nazaire, the large liner Lancastria came forward to take on board a throng of refugees and servicemen anxious to flee the advancing enemy.

The command faced a cruel dilemma peculiar to emergency evacuations. To load the ship massively, far beyond its normal capacity, in order to save as many people as possible in a single voyage, at the risk that a catastrophe might cause thousands of casualties at once. To limit the number embarked to safety standards, leaving men on shore facing the approaching enemy. Or to wait for an escort and safer conditions, at the cost of precious time under the threat from the air.

The urgency — the Germans were very near, France was capitulating — argued for embarking the maximum number. But the port and the roadstead were exposed to attacks by the Luftwaffe, and a crowded ship without protection would be terribly vulnerable. What should the command decide?