ST. NAZAIRE DISASTER

Press, Volume LXXXV, Issue 25739, 26 February 1949, Page 6

ST. NAZAIRE DISASTER

A DELAYED DISCLOSURE On June 17 it was announced that the Petain Government had • asked for an armistice, ordering all French forces to cease fighting, i without even communicating this information to our troops. General Brooke was consequently told to come away with all men he could embark and any equipment he could save. We repeated now on a considerable scale, though with larger vessels, the Dunkirk evacuation. At Brest and the western ports the evacuations were numerous. The German air attack on the transports was heavy. One frightful Incident occurred on the 17th at St Nazaire. The 20,000-ton liner Lancastria, with suo© men on board, was bombed and set on fire just as she was about to leave. A mass of flaming oil spread over the water round the ship, and upwards of 3000 men perished. The rest were rescued under continued air attack by the devotion of the small craft. When this news came to me in the * quiet Cabinet Room during the afternoon I forbade its publication, saying. “The newspapers have got quite enough disaster for to-day at least.” I had intended to release the news a few days later, but events crowded upon us so black and so quickly that I forgot to lift the ban, and it was some years before the knowledge of this horror became public.