commissioned as HMS Voltaire. She served in the Mediterranean until France capitulated in June 1940, after which she became a convoy escort in the North Atlantic, and was sunk in April 1941 by the Thor. During the war Lamport and Holt's managing director, Francis Lowe, designed and developed a lifeboat with improved buoyancy and more shelter for its occupants. The "Lowe Life-Boat" was designed to carry 55 people but on 27 January 1944 the Evening Express reported that one had remained afloat during a shipwreck despite carrying 84 men. The newspaper stated that Lowe experimented with his design for three years until it was ready to be tested by the Ministry of War Transport. In 1944 the Vestey Group, parent company of Blue Star Line, took over Lamport and Holt. To mitigate war losses Harland and Wolff built two more D-class motor ships, which were given the same names as the two that had been sunk. The second Devis was and was launched in 1944. The second Defoe, built to a slightly revised design, was and was launched in 1945. Ships lost or damaged Vandyck was converted into the armed boarding vessel HMS Vandyck. On the final day of the Franco-British Norwegian campaign, 10 June 1940, German dive bombers bombed and sank her off Andenes in northern Norway, killing two officers and five men. The remainder of her crew reached the shore and was captured. On 7 July 1940 in the South Atlantic off Ascension Island the captured and scuttled Delambre, a Japanese-built cargo steamship that Lamport and Holt had bought in 1919. On 15 October 1940 torpedoed and sank the B-class cargo steamship Bonheur in the Western Approaches about northwest of the Butt of Lewis. On 26 February 1941 a German Focke-Wulf Fw 200 Condor aircraft bombed and sank Swinburne in home waters. On 9 April 1941 the attacked Voltaire about west of Cape Verde. Voltaire returned fire but was outgunned, caught fire and sank. One source states that 81 of her crew were lost; another puts the death toll at 100. On 30 April 1941 torpedoed and sank the motor ship Lassell about southwest of Cape Verde, killing two of her crew. 25 of the survivors were rescued by the Ben Line cargo ship Benvrackie, but 15 of them were killed on 13 May when that ship was also sunk. On 9 June 1941 torpedoed and shelled the