Berthold Wiesner

[Mike K]

Sadly, events like that were not uncommon. I recall the case of a small ship packed with returning WW1 troops, they had made it back to their home port, a small coastal village in Scotland from memory.

The vessel was caught in bad weather , and being night time chaos ensued, the vessel foundered . Many of the troops drowned right in front of their home town.

Another WW1 case where two or three troop trains collided in the Nth of England . Hundreds died . The carriages had gas bottles beneath to power the gas lit carriages , plus the wooden carriages , it all went up like a fireball. The court of inquiry blamed the signal operators who were jailed for years. But modern day methods have revealed, the cause of it all, was actually the railway companies themselves, they overloaded the system way beyond its designed specs.

PS found this: it was sailors not soldiers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMY_Iolaire

and then the train disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quinti..._rail_disaster