By reason of her exclusive pre-war employment as a cruising liner, the Arandora Star was probably one of the best-known ships in the world. Built by Messrs. Cammell Laird of Birkenhead and completed in 1927 more or less as a sister ship to the Almeda , Andalucia, Avelona and Avila for the fast passenger and refrigerated cargo service to South America. She soon became employed as a cruising liner for pleasure voyages to Norway, Northern capitals, the Mediterranean and the West Indies. A twin-screw steam turbine ship of 15,300 tons with a speed of 16 knots, she was altered in 1934 and again in 1935, when her accommodation was extended aft and her mainmast was removed. With her white hull and scarlet ribbon she sometimes went by the name of the "chocolate box" or "wedding cake".

Carrying some 400 passengers in palatial surroundings, which included a Louis XIV style dining room she became the favourite of the rich and famous.

When the war broke out the Arandora Star, under the command of Captain E.W. Moulton, was on passage to New York, where she duly arrived. On her return to England she went to Falmouth where she was temporarily paid off.

There then followed a period when she was fitted with experimental anti-torpedo nets and trials and experiments conducted. The Admiralty abandoned these as far as the Arandora Star was concerned and she was ordered up to Liverpool for orders.
Sailing the next day and rendezvoused with the aircraft carrier H.M.S. Glorious and the anti-aircraft cruise H.M.S. Coventry off Narvik. On some date about June 4th she entered the fjord with other ships and embarked about 1,600 officers and men of the Royal Air Force and some French and Polish troops. In all some 25,000 men were embarked from Norway in various ships and brought back to the United Kingdom under the escort of the battleship H.M.S. Valiant with cruisers and destroyers.

Until June 7th, at any rate, the Arandora Star  was in company of with the Glorious and Coventry. The German battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, with the heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper and two destroyers were at sea. On June 8th, to the far north of Narvik, they sunk the troopship Orama, the tanker Oilpioneer and their escorting trawler H.M.S. Juniper. That same day, after a running fight, the enemy also sank the Glorious and her two escorting destroyers, the Acasta and Ardent.

The Arandora Star disembarked her troops at Glasgow, and then sailed for Swansea. From there she was ordered to Brest to bring out any troops or refugees she could. Returning to Falmouth she disembarked a few refugees and refuelled. Then she was ordered to Quiberon Bay, where it was fairly quiet and she took about 300 people on board, again landing them at Falmouth. She was next sent to Bayonne, where a destroyer met her:

"We slowed down", an officer wrote," but had to keep on the move as the bombers were busy again. This time there were dozens of over-loaded craft adrift off the beach waiting for a ship to pick them up, so it was something of a job to get them all on a moving ship. However, we got about 500, if my memory is correct, and again crossed to Falmouth."

"The retreat down the French coast was becoming chaotic by this time", he continues," and we were sent out to try and get down to the last port where there was hope of getting survivors out. This was St. Jean de Luz. All was fairly quiet when we got in, and we got about 1,700 troops and refugees, including most of the Polish Staff and their troops who had been fighting back all the way down the coast. We got clear just as the bombers came over the hills, and strangely enough they left us alone this time! We went to Liverpool with that load, and lay off the landing stage while they were disembarked."

It was there on June 29th 1940, after the most strenuous and eventful month of her career, that the senior officers of the Arandora Star heard that they were to go alongside next day to embark a large number of German and Italian internees and some prisoners of war. These were destined for St. Johns, Newfoundland.

These internees primarily consisted of enemy aliens, but during the first two years of the Second World War other aliens were also interned, including refugees who had fled Nazi Germany to escape persecution. Fears of invasion led to a general feeling of hostility towards all enemy aliens. After the outbreak of war in September 1939, known Nazi sympathisers were rounded up. This was the start of a campaign, which lasted until mid 1940, by which time, 8000 internees had been gathered into camps, to be deported to the dominions. What was appalling by today's standards, was that their wives and families were left behind without any information of their whereabouts or any communication.

At about 4.00 a.m. on the 2nd July 1940 the Arandora Star sailed from Liverpool. In all she carried 1,673 people, made up as follows:

Coastal Command was rapidly on the scene, for at about 9.30 a.m. a Royal Air force Sunderland flying boat appeared and dropped first-aid outfits, food and cigarettes in watertight bags together with a message to say help was on the way. The aircraft circled overhead until about 1.0 p.m., when the Canadian destroyer H.M.C.S. St. Laurent, Commander H. G. De Wolf, arrived at full speed for the work of rescue.

It was a task of the greatest difficulty which took in all 5 hours. Picking up people in the boats was easy enough; but rescuing small parties or individual people clinging to rafts or wreckage required patience and great nicety of judgment, not to mention good seamanship. Few of the survivors could help themselves, or even grasp a rope, because of the scum of oil with which they and the sea was covered. Sailors had to be put over the side with bowlines with which many of the swimmers were hoisted bodily on board.
A British destroyer, H.M.S. Walker, arrived later and scoured the area; but no further survivors were found.

It was the evening by the time St. Laurent had rescued all she could find: some 868 people, who were landed next day at Greenock. With a thousand people on board, counting her own crew, the St. Laurent was a very crowded ship. How she cared for a crowd of exhausted survivors which completely filled the mess-decks, officers quarters, and one boiler-room, leaving a number to be accommodated behind the dubious shelter of canvas screens on the upper deck, is difficult to realise.

In the tragic disaster Captain E. W. Moulton and 12 other officers, together with 42 of the crew of the Arandora Star lost their lives. Of the military guard 37 were drowned, with 470 Italians and 243 Germans, a total death roll of 805 souls of the 1,673 carried.

The harsh policy of deportation was gradually relaxed after the sinking of the S.S.  Arandora Star. This disaster led to vigorous protests about the British internment policy, which was changed to internment of enemy aliens in camps in Britain only.

Acknowledgement to Blue Star Line at War 1939-45 by Taffrail           List of Italians lost: http://www.thearandorastar.com/as-italian-list.htm

Arandora Memorial, Colonsay, Scotland

Memorial to Italians lost on Arandora Star at Bratto, Tuscany ~ Photograph © Russ Boyd