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Former Head of NATO, George Robertson was born in Port Ellen on Islay and his maternal grandfather Malcolm MacNeill was a policeman there at the time of two horrific tragedies where American troop ships sank. On the February 5, 1918, the American troop-ship Tuscania, en route to Britain with more than 2,000 American soldiers, was sunk by a German U-Boat seven miles off the Mull of Oa, drowning over 200 men. On October 6, the American troop carrier Otranto sank in a collision to the west of the island. More than 400 lives were lost.

MacNeill had the grim task of logging descriptions of the bodies that were washed ashore in order to aid identification. Ten years ago, for the 90th anniversary of the sinking, Lord Robertson revisited the island for the Â鶹ԼÅÄ programme ‘When the Boats went down’, this is an extract from the programme.
(Photo courtesy of the US National Archives).