Service on Islay to remember sinking of SS Tuscania

The ship was carrying more than 2,000 US soldiers at the end of World War One when it was torpedoed by a German U-boat close to the island.

Many of the soldiers on board were saved and cared for by the islanders.

But more than 200 were drowned, with the bodies washed up on the beaches of the small island.

A wreath-laying will take place at the American Monument on Monday.

This will followed by a memorial service at Kilnaughton Commonwealth War Graves Commission Cemetery, held at the grave of Pte Roy Muncaster, the only US soldier still buried on the island.

Former Nato secretary general Lord Robertson, whose grandfather Malcolm MacNeill was a policeman on Islay at the time, told BBC Scotland that many local residents helped to recover the dead and aid the survivors after the sinking.

He said: “It is difficult to imagine just how remarkable it would have been – how horrible it would have been – for all these lifeboats coming ashore and all the bodies being washed into the gullies there onto an island that had no experience of anything like that in the past.”

A monument was erected on the southernmost tip of the island by the American Government in 1919 as a memorial to those who died when Tuscania was sunk by UB-77 in the Irish Sea, seven miles south-west of Islay.

On board were 2,235 soldiers consisting of companies from the 6th Battalion, 20th VS Engineers, members of the 32nd Division, the 100th and 103rd Aero Squadrons and a British crew.

Lord Robertson is due to attend a larger event on Islay in May, which will commemorate the sinking of both the SS Tuscania and the HMS Otranto.

The Otranto sank during a severe storm off the coast of Islay on 6 October 1918, killing 470 American soldiers and crewmen.

The event on 4 May will retell Islay’s contribution in WW1, including the assistance provided in the aftermath of the Tuscania and Otranto tragedies.

It will be followed by a service at Port Ellen War Memorial.