Pte. Joseph Law
British Army 50 Coy. Auxiliary Military Pioneer Corps
from:Castleton, Rochdale, Lancs
(d.17th June 1940)
My grandfather, Joseph Law of 50 Company, Auxiliary Military Pioneer Corps aged 41 years, was aboard the HMT Lancastria during evacuation from France in Operation Ariel, this was some two weeks after the Dunkirk evacuation. Around 4pm a German dive-bomber attacked the ship and she sank within 20 minutes. It is thought that as many as 6000 people (men, women and children) lost their lives. Grandad Joe was among those killed and the irony that he was terrified of drowning is particularly upsetting. Countless people drowned or were choked by oil on the water's surface. Strafing German aircraft shot many and somebody told my mother that this is how her father Joe died, of course this can never be corroborated.
Joe left his wife Mary Elizabeth Law and four children Hilda, Joey, Douglas and Ellen, the eldest of the children was my mother Hilda. Mum never got over the loss of her father, they were very close and she missed him for the rest of her life. I believe grandad Joe did a fabulous impersonation of Charlie Chaplin's stick twirling walk and could make a muscle mouse walk across his shoulders! It is extremely sad that I never met my grandad Joe, but I really wish mum hadn't lost her dad. My mother Hilda went to work on munitions as her way of helping the war effort.
