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FENBY, JONATHAN: : THE SINKING OF THE LANCASTRIA: Britain's Greatest Maritime Disaster and Churchill's Cover-Up

LONDON.SIMON & SCHUSTER UK Ltd.,,2005.

ISBN 0743259300.

UK,8vo HB+dw/dj,1st edn.[Complete number line1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2.] FINE/FINE. No owner inscrptn and no price-clip to dw/dj.Laid in loosely,a local newspaper's cutting+picture - a historical potted biography+photograph of one of the victims,along with a strip of torn,address headed notepaper of The HMT Lancastria Association.Bright,crisp,clean,matt,part coloured sepia photographic illustration,with glossy b/w+grey lettering to front panel of dw/dj,black glossy lettering to white thumbnail photographic white background,and rear panel with white lettered critics' reviews for author's title 'GENERALISSIMO'; with negligible shelf-wear, creasing to edges and corners - no nicks or tears present.Top+fore-edges though slightly toned are bright and clean; contents bright,tight, clean - pristine,virtually as new - no dog-ear reading creases to any pages' corners - appears unread,apart from my own collation.Bright,crisp,clean,sharp-cornered,publisher's original plain,black cloth boards with bright,crisp,blocked silver gilt letters to spine/backstrip,and immaculate plain white eps.UK,8vo HB+ dw/dj,1st edn,xiipp+2-269pp [paginated] includes acknowledgements.a prologue,14 chapters,8pp contemporary b/w photographs in 1 block,between pp130/1,notes,a bibliography and an index,plus [unpaginated] half-title+title pages,a dedication - to Lancastria's dead and survivors,a b/w map (France & English Channel and with St. Nazaire inset map),a title separator page,and 4pp blanks to the rear. On 17 June 1940,thousands of British soldiers and airmen left behind in France after the Dunkirk evacuation died after their troopship,the Lancastria,was hit by a German dive-bomber.It was the deadliest maitime disaster in British history,and one of the worst the world has ever seen.But Churchill censored the terrible news to keep up morale,and the Lancastria became Britain's great unknown wartime tragedy. Drawing on memories of survivors,previously unused historical records and extensive research in France and Britain,this book tells how the former Cunard liner went to the seabed,and vividly describes the fate of those aboard.The death toll was at least 3,000 - more than double the number who died on the Titanic.Some accounts put it much higher.There was carnage as the bombs exploded inside the stately ship.Men,and a few women and children,fought for their lives in the oily water of the Loire estuary,enduring strafing runs from German planes as they clung to rafts and wreckage; others stood on the 16,000-ton ship's upturned hull singing patriotic songs as she went down.But,after Churchill's censorship kept news of the heroism and tragedy of that day from the public,the Lancastria has barely been mentioned in subsequent histories. Re-creating this extraordinary disaster with great narrative flair,Jonathan Fenby also reveals the human stories of the men left behind in France after the evacuation from Dunkirk.Though largely ignored at the time they numbered no fewer than 100,000; after delaying for two weeks,Churchill finally agreed to their evacuation,and they streamed across France as the Germans swept forward nd the French government capitulated. Gripping and moving,packed with tales of ordinary soldiers and airmen,'The Sinking of the Lancastria' tells a major forgotten story of the Second World War. Please contact seller,because of the value of this item,for correct,insured shipping/P+p quotes - particularly ALL overseas buyers - BEFORE ordering through the order page!

UK,8vo HB+dw/dj,1st edn.
Not SIGNED.

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