John STOCKS

Private 2188566 John STOCKS. 46th Auxiliary Military Pioneer Corps.
Born 1912 at Clay Cross to John and Elizabeth Anne Stocks, nee Hyde of (1911) Waterloo Street, Clay Cross.

Died of injuries on evacuation ship S.S Lancastria Monday 17 June 1940, five miles off St Nazaire France. when it was attacked and sunk by german aircraft. He was aged 28 years.
At rest in Pornic War Cemetery France.

This memorial tablet is part of Clay Cross War Memorial, Derbyshire.

The evacuation of British troops from France in 1940 did not end with Dunkirk. British forces were still being rescued two weeks later when Britain's worst maritime disaster of World War II took place. On the 17th of June 1940 the 16,000 ton Cunard liner Lancastria lay 5 miles off St Nazaire and embarked troops, RAF personnel, and civilian refugees, including women and children, who were being evacuated from France, which was then on the verge of collapse.