RootsChat.Com

Sorry that I've come very late to this but I might be able to shed some light on it. My grandfather was part of the BEF and was evacuated from St Nazaire. He narrowly missed getting onboard the Lancastria and watched from the harbour as it was attacked and sunk. He was evacuated soon after and was then posted to the Isle of Man to guard prison camps housing 'aliens' (German, Austrian and Italian civilians living in the UK). It was there that he met my grandmother. After they married in 1942, he was talking to her father, my great-grandfather. They discovered that they had both seen the sinking of the Lancastria that night at St Nazaire; my grandfather from the dockside and my great-grandfather, from the the Isle of Man Steam Packet Company ship he was serving on, lying off the French port. I have struggled to find any mention of IoMSP ships involved in Operation Aerial and wondered how the story of their conversation came about. But the accounts here could explain it.

My grandfather was evacuated from St Nazaire in 1940 and was supposed to be on the Lancastria but narrowly missed embarkation. He saw the ship being attacked and sunk.

His next posting was to guard the internment camps in the Isle of Man, which is where he met and married my nan.

Years after the war had finished he was talking to my great grandfather (my nan's father) who had served in the Royal Navy in the First War and was a sailor with the Isle of Man Steam Packet Company from the 1930s to the 60s.

He worked on a Steam Packet ferry that was sent to evacuate troops from Dunkirk and other French ports.

It transpired they both had seen the Lancastria go down from the sea and from the land and of course only spoke of this many years later.


Incidentally, does anyone have anyone have information on the Royal Engineers of the BEF who were evacuated from St Nazaire?