Respects paid to hundreds of troops lost at sea off Scottish island

A service was held yesterday at the American monument on Islay’s Mull of Oa to mark the centenary of the sinking of SS Tuscania and HMS Otranto. Carrying more than 2,000 US Army personnel to join the battlefields in Europe, SS Tuscania was going from New Jersey to Liverpool when it was torpedoed by German submarine UB-77, sinking between Islay and Northern Ireland on February 5. On October 6, HMS Otranto sank near Machir Bay, on the west coast of the island, after a collision with HMS Kashmir.