The Ghost of St. Nazaire

By Mark Morrin

The Fall of France was almost complete. Thousands of troops were being evacuated from the port of St. Nazaire. Those crammed aboard the RMS Lancastria were anxious to get home. But before the ship could get under way it was hit by a German dive bomber. Within minutes the Lancastria went down to the sea. The sinking cost the lives of more than both the Titanic and Lusitania combined. The greatest maritime tragedy in British history, and the largest loss of life from a single engagement for British forces in the Second World War, was placed under the Official Secrets Act, not to be published until the year 2040. This is the story of one crew members struggle to survive. From the 'Sons of Thunder' a collection of short stories spanning Liverpool to New York and three generations of a seafaring family.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mark Morrin
• Release date: Sep 22, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463644393

Book preview

The Ghost of St. Nazaire

Mark Morrin

Copyright © Mark Morrin, 2019

Prologue

The collapse of the British Expeditionary Force was almost complete. France was on the brink of surrender. On the 10th May 1940, the German army had simultaneously invaded the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxemburg and France. Within four days the Netherlands had fallen. The Luftwaffe had razed Rotterdam to the ground. Panzer Divisions had broken through the heavily wooded Ardennes region, which the French Generals considered impenetrable for armoured forces and had therefore left lightly secured. Attacking with great speed and power the Germans had pierced enemy lines and swung around to outflank the allied forces. By the eleventh day the British and what was left of the Belgium army were encircled at the port town of Dunkirk. With their backs to the sea the allies were cut off and trapped along the coast of Northern France. The only hope was evacuation. The Admiralty began arranging for all available small vessels capable of getting close to shore, to be made ready to proceed to France.

Operation Dynamo lifted over three hundred thousand men from the beaches, saving them from certain death or capture, when the country had been bracing itself for the most devasting loss in its long history. Churchill, eager to boost morale, had assured the nation that all forces had been completely and successfully withdrawn. But the miracle that delivered these souls from the church in the dunes, had left another two hundred thousand allied soldiers and civilians stranded within the interior and along the supply entrepôts at Cherbourg, Brittany and Nantes.

June 1940

RMS Lancastria reached the Bar lightship at the mouth of the Mersey estuary on the morning of the 14th of June. She was on her return from the evacuation of Norway, another disastrous campaign masterminded by the First Lord of the Admiralty. No sooner had British Commonwealth troops landed than plans were being put in place for their immediate withdrawal as German forces overran the country. Tension amongst the crew eased as they approached Liverpool. At eleven ‘clock the crew disembarked and were paid off.

Later that day Douglas Keeley arrived home in Low Wood Street, worse for wear, courtesy of the public houses on the Dock Road. He was greeted by a welcoming committee gathered on the doorstep of the house where he was living with his wife and her widowed mother.

I wasn’t expecting to be piped aboard, he joked.

His wife Frances, heavily pregnant with their second child, was less than impressed but relieved to see him all the same.

"You took your time