English: Cloisonné crest of the Cunard liner RMS Laconia including the Cunard Line standard surrounded by a blue garter and, as a Royal Mail Ship, a Royal Mail pre-war design "crown" logo, decorating a surviving silver plate "bud" vase from the liner's main dining salon. The day after Britain had declared war on Germany on September 3, 1939, the British flagged liner was requisitioned by the Admiralty, converted first into an armed merchant cruiser, and then in 1941 to a troop transport. Three years after entering national service, however, the Laconia was torpedoed and sunk in the Atlantic Ocean on the evening of September 12, 1942, by the German submarine U-256. It went down about 130 miles north-northeast of Ascension Island with the loss of over 1,600 passengers and crew. Most of those lost were Italian POW's being transported to England from the Middle East. (The Cooper Historic Transportation Collection)