RMS Lancastria was a British ocean liner requisitioned by the UK Government during the Second World War.
| FactSnippet No. 2,231,932 |
15 Facts About RMS Lancastria
2.
RMS Lancastria was the sister ship of RMS Cameronia which Beardmore had built for the Anchor Line the previous year.
| FactSnippet No. 2,231,933 |
3.
RMS Lancastria made her maiden voyage, Glasgow–Quebec City–Montreal, on 19 June 1922.
| FactSnippet No. 2,231,934 |
4.
RMS Lancastria sailed scheduled routes between Liverpool and New York until 1932, and was then used as a cruise ship in the Mediterranean Sea and Northern Europe.
| FactSnippet No. 2,231,935 |
5.
On 10 October 1932 RMS Lancastria rescued the crew of the Belgian cargo ship SS Scheldestad, which had been abandoned in a sinking condition in the Bay of Biscay.
| FactSnippet No. 2,231,936 |
6.
RMS Lancastria was ordered to sail from Nassau to New York for refitting as she had been requisitioned as a troopship, becoming HMT Lancastria.
| FactSnippet No. 2,231,937 |
7.
RMS Lancastria was first used to ferry men and supplies between Canada and the United Kingdom.
| FactSnippet No. 2,231,938 |
8.
Shortly afterwards, RMS Lancastria carried troops to consolidate the invasion of Iceland.
| FactSnippet No. 2,231,939 |
10.
RMS Lancastria was originally sent to Quiberon Bay as part of Operation Aerial, which was the evacuation of the remainder of the British Expeditionary Force which had been cut-off to the south of the German advance through France, amounting to some 124,000 men, mostly logistic support troops, from various ports in western France.
| FactSnippet No. 2,231,941 |
11.
RMS Lancastria was told that he should take as many as he possibly could "without regard to the limits of International Law".
| FactSnippet No. 2,231,942 |
12.
One Royal Engineers officer reported that he had been told by one of RMS Lancastria's loading officers that over 7,200 people had come aboard.
| FactSnippet No. 2,231,943 |
13.
Missing British military dead from the sinking of RMS Lancastria are commemorated on a number of Commonwealth War Graves Commission memorials.
| FactSnippet No. 2,231,944 |
14.
The day of the 75th anniversary of the loss of RMS Lancastria was marked in the Westminster Parliament on 17 June 2015 at Prime Minister's Questions by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, who was standing in for the Prime Minister.
| FactSnippet No. 2,231,945 |
15.
RMS Lancastria is represented at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire by a sessile oak tree and a plaque.
| FactSnippet No. 2,231,946 |