Vingt Cinq Morgan's Army board the Lancastria and what they believe will be a luxurious voyage home.

But the Wehrmacht, the German Army, are hot on their heels.

The Unit is scattered throughout the ship, a vessel that is chronically overloaded, when suddenly the klaxons and bells alert the men to an incoming air raid.

Soon after the bombs begin to drop. The horror is about to begin.

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Everything was going "swimmingly" until a sudden increase in refugee traffic indicates the real army, fighting 200 miles to the North, is in trouble.

Soon after 663 are former up and informed by Major Morgan they are to make for the coast and hopefully a troopship that will take them back to the UK. They arrive at the port and endure a heavy air raid before marching down to the docks where a small tug boat will ferry them out to a large, converted liner waiting nine miles away in the Loire estuary.

The boys of 663 think they are on their way home, but fate has a different outcome for them that will change everything for good.

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Vingt Cinq Morgan's Army have completed the most basic of basic training and now they are on their way to France. 663 Company Artisan Works Company is divided in two with Major Morgan taking the majority of the men, by train, to Southampton. But the unit is plagued by delay after delay. All the while the weather remains cold and dark.

It's not a good omen for what lies ahead and the men finally arrive in the French city of Nantes three days later, weary and exhausted.

Whilst they settle down to a basic routine and take in the splendour of Nantes the Germans continue their plans.

These short months in early 1940 are will prove to be the calm before the storm.

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