In 1940, when Mussolini declared war on Britain, Scotland’s cities saw violent riots against their hitherto welcomed Italian communities. Shortly after, all Italian men between the ages of seventeen and sixty were interned or transported out of the country. In July 712 Italians were shipped off to Canada from Liverpool on board the Arandora Star, which carried 1,500 ‘enemy aliens’. When it was torpedoed by a German U-boat, 450 Italian internees drowned, most of them shopkeepers and café workers. In all, 805 internees, crew and guards on the ship died.
Further interviews with survivors of the liner Arandora Star, which was sunk by a German U-boat in the Atlantic, indicate that but for the disgraceful panic by the Germans and Italians on board many more lives could have been saved.
When the Germans made a wild rush for the lifeboats and fought with the Italians for precedence, scores were forced overboard in the struggle. British troops and British seamen had to waste valuable time that might have been devoted to rescue work in forcibly separating the aliens. Some British seamen actually went down with the liner while they were still working feverishly to get some of the aliens off.
The hostility between the Germans and Italians was so fierce that even after they had been landed at a Scottish port they continued to attack each other and had to be put in separate buildings.
Martin Verinder, of Romford, an 18-year-old steward of the Arandora Star, said that but for attempts to keep the Germans and Italians under control hardly anybody would have escaped.
‘As they rushed the boats with the idea of every man for himself,’ he said, ‘soldiers and crew had to threaten them. I even saw one German sailor, who seemed to have a lot more sense than the rest, take a rifle and club his compatriots. In the lifeboat the internees were selfish, too, and when an aeroplane dropped bread and bully beef, they grabbed it and a few started to wolf it as fast as they could. Soldiers had to seize it from them before it could be shared evenly.
‘The last I saw of the captain was when he coolly asked one man to fetch him a glass of water. The man brought him a coat as well. The captain was standing on his bridge giving orders; the bridge was protected with barbed wire and I knew as I saw him standing there that the captain would never get away. I saw the ship’s doctor, apparently wounded in the leg, stand up and salute the ship and the captain as the vessel sharply turned half over and sank within two minutes at about 7 a.m. A cloud of steam rose 100 ft into the air and the suction dragged rafts and men under with the ship.’
Another survivor said that in some of the lifeboats the internees, both German and Italian, refused to let members of the crew who were swimming in the water get into the boats. As the Englishmen tried to clamber on board there were shouts of ‘No room in here,’ and many of the crew were beaten as they tried to climb in …