American Monument With Music At Oa On History Visit To Island Of Islay Inner Hebrides Scotland

Tour Scotland 4K short travel video clip, with Scottish music, of the American Monument on ancestry, genealogy, family history visit to Oa on the Island of Islay, Inner Hebrides. The rocky peninsula which forms the south western part of Islay is known as The Oa. In the mid 1800s it was home to a significant population, but this diminished dramatically through the rest of the century through clearances and emigration. The American Monument is a memorial to the hundreds of American servicemen who were killed when two troop ships were lost off Islay in 1918. It was erected by the American National Red Cross in 1920. The epitaph on the monument is very moving: " On Fame's Eternal camping ground, Their silent tents are spread, While Glory keeps with solemn round, The bivouac of the dead. " The S.S. Tuscania was a troop ship en route from New Jersey to Britain with some 2,000 US soldiers on board when, on 5 February 1918, she was torpedoed by the German U-boat UB77 commanded by Captain Wilhelm Meyer some seven miles off the Mull of Oa. She sank some hours later, and 200 US servicemen plus 60 members of her British crew lost their lives during her abandonment or when lifeboats were subsequently wrecked on the rocks of The Oa. Just over eight months later, on 6 October 1918 a second ship heavily laden with US servicemen, H.M.S. Otranto, sank in Machir Bay off north western Islay after a collision in fog with another troop ship, H.M.S. Kashmir. This time 431 lives were lost: 80 members of the British crew and 351 US servicemen All photographs are copyright of Sandy Stevenson, Tour Scotland, and may not be used without permission.

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