Hello r/History.

This is my first post on this subreddit, so if the submission is inappropriate please let me know!

I recently came across some relics from my great grandfather's time in World War II and felt that you might be interested in seeing them.

He was among the many soldiers being evacuated from France during Operation Ariel, which occured around two weeks after the famous Dunkirk evacuation. He was onboard the HMT Lancastria when it was destroyed by a German air raid.

Here is the letter mentioned in the post title. I will post a transcript in the comments afterwards, as the writing can be hard to make out at times.

Letter Page 1

Letter Page 2

Letter Page 3

Letter Page 4

As you can tell by the date on the letter (June 22nd, 1940), this was five days after the sinking of the RMS / HMT Lancastria which occured on June 17th, 1940.

It is a personal letter to his family and so doesn't contain any sensational revelations about the event, but I found it interesting to see the effects it had on a soldier who actually experienced it first hand. His injuries and the loss of his friends are very apparent, and you can see his fatigue in the clarity of his sentences and handwriting towards the end.

He mentions in the letter about how information concerning the sinking had not been released to the public yet, which appears consistent with the fact that the event wasn't published by the media until July 25th, 1940. Interestingly though, it sounds like an enormous amount of people turned out to support and assist the rescued survivors in Plymouth, so I imagine it wasn't entirely secret.

I don't know much more about my great grandfather other than what you see here. He was named John Bradbury Lewis, and my mum told me that he was a member of the British Royal Engineers, though I have had trouble tracking down other information to identify him.

There is a number at the top of the letter (5041864), which could be his soldier number, but I have been unable to match that to any (free) public records. There are also some initials before his name in the letter which could have been his rank, but I can't make them out. It appears to be "P" something. Feel free to assist if you can figure it out.

Here are some pictures of the medals he received for his service.

Medal Box

Full contents

Based on the included guide, these seem to be the 1939 - 45 Star and War Medal 1939 - 45. I expect these are relatively common British campaign medals, but interesting nonetheless.

Finally, I also have the cigarette case mentioned in the letter. There is black staining on the lid which might be from the oil that spilled into the ocean after the sinking. He talks in the letter about how he had been covered in oil and how a sailor on the destroyer that rescued him helped to clean him and the case up. If that is true, then I find it strangely harrowing to think that the stain on this case is linked to an event that took the lives of thousands of people. Here are some pictures.

Cigarette Case

Inside

And that's about all I've got! Thank you for reading, I hope you found it interesting.