Sir,—Lar Joye, in his item on the Lusitania (Artefacts, HI 23.3, May/ June 2015), refers to the torpedoing of the RMS Leinster in 1918 ‘with the loss of 178 lives’. This is a common error made by referring to an official 1919 publication on vessels lost at sea, which omits military deaths. Phillip Lecane, in his meticulously researched book Torpedoed! The RMS Leinster Disaster (2005), records at least 501 deaths (he puts the true figure closer to 530), the majority of whom were military. Amongst those who perished was my uncle, who was a postal sorter, and my wife’s grandfather, an RMC orderly, in what was (and remains) the greatest loss of life ever in the Irish Sea.—Yours etc.,
DERMOT QUINN
Sutton
