The "Les Oubliés du Meknès" association has been working since 2009 in memory of the sailors who survived and disappeared on the Meknès liner torpedoed in 1940.
On Wednesday July 24, 1940, 1179 officers and sailors (including 2 officer?s wives and a child) and 103 crewmen boarded the Meknès for France, expecting to be reunited with their loved ones and demobilized.
It was 11 p.m. off Portland, and the Meknès was sailing under clear lights, the tricolored flags painted on each side of her hull illuminated by large lamps, testifying to her neutrality. She was machine-gunned by a German patrol boat and torpedoed. She sank in eight minutes. It was a tragic night for all concerned. At dawn the next day, the survivors were picked up by British destroyers. 420 sailors were unaccounted for. This was the beginning of the "Forgotten of the Meknes".
The four destroyers docked in Weymouth harbor at noon on July 25, carrying 899 survivors, 4 dead and 57 wounded, who were taken to St. Martin?s Hospital in Bath.
To their misfortune, from August 23rd to the end of October 1940, the sea washed up on the beaches of Normandy and Picardy 243 bodies, 116 of which were terribly mutilated and never identified. 177 bodies were never recovered.
A stele on the cliffs of St-Martin-en-Campagne/Berneval-le-Grand in the commune of Petit-Caux (76) serves as a reminder.
Every July 24, a commemorative ceremony is held at the stele to honor the memory of the missing sailors and survivors of the Meknès, as well as the 3 British airmen, so that they are not forgotten.
The association continues to work to raise awareness of the history of the Meknès and its sailors, both those who survived and those who disappeared.
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