Hundreds drown as neutral ship sunk

24th July 1940: French troops are victims of a Schnellboot attack on the repatriation ship Meknes in the English Channel

The French liner SS Meknes. Three hundred French soldiers and sailors died when she was torpedoed despite stopping and identifying herself as a neutral ship.

After hostilities between France and Germany ended, thousands of French troops and sailors remained in Britain. Over 125,000 had been evacuated alongside British troops from Dunkirk. Most had been q…