About the Author:
Jonathan Fenby, a former editor of the Observer, is the author of several books, including the acclaimed On the Brink: The Trouble with France and the critically acclaimed biography Chiang Kai-Shek. He lives in the United Kingdom.
From Booklist:
On June 17, 1940, the Lancastria, a former Cunard liner turned into a troopship, sank in the harbor at St-Nazaire, France, after being hit by four bombs dropped from a German plane. On board were more than 6,000 people, mostly soldiers, although some were civilian women and children. At least 3,500 on board were killed. Eight hundred Royal Air Force men died when a bomb hit one of the holds, and another ripped through the ship's hospital. Some of the people in the water went mad. Many choked on the 1,400 tons of oil that poured out of the liner's tanks. Fenby reveals that Prime Minister Winston Churchill ordered the sinking not to be reported in the press for the time being, but in the rush of events, "he forgot to lift the ban." It was the greatest loss of life in any British maritime disaster, a tragedy that Churchill tried to conceal. The book, based on accounts by survivors and other documents and diaries, is a gripping chronicle of this catastrophe. George Cohen
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