Oil Painting Rms Lancastria Ship Leaving Liverpool Heading to Evacuate British Expeditionary Force in June 1940, Framed

Description

1 British Historic Marine Oil Painting RMS Lancastria Steam Ship Ocean Liner Leaving Liverpool With Coburg Tug Enroute Evacuation Of … more 1 British Historic Marine Oil Painting RMS Lancastria Steam Ship Ocean Liner Leaving Liverpool With Coburg Tug Enroute Evacuation Of Remainder British Expedition Force Saint Naziare 1940.
Impress your clients & guests with this historic WW2 war time ocean liner which is so captivating.
Style traditional.
Title “Lancastria Leaving Liverpool Captain Rudoph Sharp Enroute Evacuation of Remainder of British Expeditionary Force At Saint Nazaire”
Subject marine view depicting the RMS Lancastria ocean liner steam ship in an iconic moment in history. The ship is i sailing steaming along in side profile facing right departing from Liverpool on the river mersey, accompanied by tug boat coburg in the distance. With figures on deck & the Union Jack ensign flag is flying on the bow. The ship is enroute to rescue survivors of the British Expeditionart Force that was stranded in France in June 1940. You can view the liver birds on top of the Royal Liver buildings in the Pier Head. Above with mix of light blue clear sky with white clouds.
Distinctly signed by the Liverpool marine artist E Wishart.
Circa late 20th century dated 1991.
A great display size with the frame being 75 cm wide and 46 cm high.
Medium oil on board.
Set in original wood frame.
With hanging thread on the back ready for immediate home display.
RMS Lancastria was a British ocean liner requisitioned by the UK Government during the Second World War. The ships tonnage was 16,243 GRT & a had a length of 578 ft (176 m) Beam 70 ft (21 m) Height 43 ft (13 m) Draught 31.4 ft (9.6 m). With 7 decks and a shelter deck Installed power 6 steam turbines, 2,500 nhp Propulsion Twin propellers. A top speed of 16.5 knots (31 km/h; 19 mph). Capacity 1,300 passengers 3 cargo holds: 438,000 cubic feet (12,400 m3) Grain Capacity 400,000 cubic feet (11,000 m3) Bale Capacity 29,000 cubic feet (820 m3) Refrigerated & a crew compliment of 300.
She was sunk on 17 June 1940 during Operation Aerial. Having received an emergency order to evacuate British nationals and troops from France, the ship was loaded well in excess of its capacity of 1,300 passengers. Modern estimates suggest that between 4,000 and 7,000 people died during the sinking — the largest single-ship loss of life in British maritime history.The ship was launched in 1920 as Tyrrheniaby William Beardmore and Company of Dalmuir on the River Clyde for the Anchor Line, a subsidiary of Cunard. She was the sister ship of RMS Cameronia, which Beardmore had built for the Anchor Line the previous year.[4] Tyrrhenia was 16,243 gross register tons (GRT), 578 feet (176 m) long and could carry 2,200 passengers in three classes. She made her maiden voyage, Glasgow–Quebec City–Montreal, on 19 June 1922.
In 1924 she was refitted for two classes and renamed Lancastria after passengers complained that they could not properly pronounce Tyrrhenia; (viz: RP /tjuːˈriːniɑː/ as per the crew's nickname of the ship: the "Old Soup Tureen". She 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.On 10 October 1932 Lancastria rescued the crew of the Belgian cargo ship SS Scheldestad, which had been abandoned in a sinking condition in the Bay of Biscay. In 1934 the Catholic Boy Scouts of Ireland chartered Lancastria for a pilgrimage to Rome.[6][8] In May 1936, she undertook a specially commissioned cruise to visit war memorials at Malta, Salonika, Gallipoli and Istanbul. The passengers on this voyage included Admiral of the Fleet Roger Keyes, Field Marshal William Birdwood and Commodore Edward Unwin.
At the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939, Lancastria was in the Bahamas. She was ordered to sail from Nassau to New York for refitting as she had been requisitioned as a troopship, becoming HMT Lancastria. Unnecessary fittings were removed, she was repainted in battleship grey, the portholes were blacked out, and a 4-inch gun was installed. She was first used to ferry men and supplies between Canada and the United Kingdom. In April 1940, she was one of twenty troopships in Operation Alphabet, the evacuation of troops from Norway, and was bombed on the return journey although she escaped damage. Shortly afterwards, Lancastria carried troops to consolidate the invasion of Iceland.
Returning to Glasgow, the captain requested that surplus oil in her tanks be removed, but there was insufficient time before she was ordered to Liverpool for a refit. Crew members were either discharged or sent on leave. Loss Lancastria was sunk on 17 June 1940 off the French port of St. Nazaire while taking part in Operation Aerial, the evacuation of British nationals and troops from France, two weeks after the Dunkirk evacuation.
A fresh air raid began at 15:50 by Junkers Ju 88 bomber aircraft from Kampfgeschwader 30. Lancastria was hit by three or possibly four bombs. A number of survivors reported that one bomb had gone down the ship's single funnel which is most likely, given the speed with which the ship sank – about 15–20 minutes. The testimony of an engineering officer, Frank Brogden, who was in the engine room at the time contradicts this. Brogden's account states that one bomb landed close to the funnel and entered No. 4 hold.
Two other bombs landed in No. 2 and No. 3 holds while a fourth landed close to the port side of the ship, rupturing the fuel oil tanks, though even with this damage, the ship should have stayed afloat for longer unless the report of the bomb in the funnel was true. As the ship began to list to starboard, orders were given for the men on deck to move to the port side in an effort to counteract it, but this caused a list to port which could not be corrected. The ship was equipped with sixteen lifeboats and 2,500 life jackets; but many of the boats could not be launched because they had been damaged in the bombing or because of the angle of the hull. The first boat away was filled with women and children but it capsized on landing in the water and a second had to be lowered for them.
A third boat had its bottom stoved in by landing too fast. A large number of men who jumped over the side were killed by hitting the side of the hull or had their necks broken by their life jackets on impact with the water.[24] As Lancastria began to capsize, some of those who were still on board managed to scramble onto the ship's underside. According to some accounts, these were heard to be singing 'Roll Out the Barrel' and 'There'll Always Be an England', though some survivors strongly deny this.[22] The ship sank at 16:12, within twenty minutes of being hit,[25]which gave little time for other vessels to respond. Many of those in the water drowned because there were insufficient life jackets, or died from hypothermia, or were choked by fuel oil.[26] According to Jonathan Fenby in his book The Sinking of the Lancastria, the German aircraft strafed survivors in the water.
Survivors were taken aboard other British and Allied evacuation vessels, the trawler HMT Cambridgeshire rescuing 900.[28] Capt WG Euston recommended several of his crew for awards, including Stanley Kingett for "making repeated journeys in a lifeboat to pick up exhausted men from the water while under machine-gun fire from enemy planes", and William Perrin for "keeping up continuous machine-gun fire in an attempt to prevent enemy planes machine-gunning men in the water."[29] Rudolph Sharp survived the sinking and went on to command the RMS Laconia, losing his life on 12 September 1942 in the Laconia incident off West Africa. Wreck Status.The Government of the United Kingdom has not made the site a war grave under the Protection of Military Remains Act 1986, stating that it has no jurisdiction over French territorial waters.[41] Early in the 21st century the French Government placed an exclusion zone around the wreck site.
Sources Churchill, Winston S. (1949). The Second World War: Their Finest Hour (Volume II). London: Cassell & Co. Crabb, Brian James (2002). The Forgotten Tragedy: The Story of the Loss of HMT Lancastria. Donington: Shaun Tyas. ISBN 1-900289-50-4. Crabb, Brian James (2022). Book of Remembrance. HMT Lancastria. Portishead: Angela Young. Fenby, Jonathan (2005). The Sinking of the "Lancastria": Britain's Greatest Maritime Disaster and Churchill's Cover-up. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-7432-5930-0. Sebag-Montiefiore, Hugh (2006). "The Sinking of the Lancastria". Dunkirk: Fight to the Last Man. London: Viking Press. pp. 487–495. ISBN 0670910821.Tackle, Patrick (2009). The British Army in France After Dunkirk. Barnsley, South Yorkshire: Pen & Sword Books. ISBN 978-1-84415-852-2.
Provenance private northern shire marine collection, northern Shire auction label verso & in collection of Cheshire Antiques Consultant LTD
A superb nautical collectors item.
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Dimensions in centimetres of the frame

High (46 cm)
Width (75 cm)
Length depth thickness of frame (1.5 cm) less