Loss Various possible causes have been suggested, including one of her aircraft crashing onto the flight deck and igniting petrol fumes from leaking tanks. Much of what happened remains unknown. The death toll, 379 out of 528 crewmen, despite rapid response and assistance from ships and rescue craft from Brodick and Lamlash on the Isle of Arran and from Ardrossan and Greenock on the Scottish mainland, was amongst the highest in British home waters. Many escaped from the ship but died of hypothermia or of burns suffered when escaped fuel ignited on the water. Most of the dead were buried at Ardrossan or Greenock. The British blamed the bad design of the stowage and handling, while the US blamed the disaster on poor RN petrol-handling procedures. There were merits in both arguments, but thereafter the stowage on her British-operated sister ships was reduced from down to , and the USN reduced theirs also but not as drastically. The government of the time, eager to avoid damage to morale and anxious to avoid any suggestion of faulty US construction, tried to cover up the sinking. The local media were ordered to make no reference to the tragedy. There were rumours that the authorities ordered the dead to be buried in an unmarked mass grave, but none had been found , and the Royal Navy said that a mass unmarked grave would have been against Admiralty policy and that all sources relating to the sinking of HMS Dasher are in the public domain. A witness said in 2021 that survivors had told her that there was a mortuary where they were taken to identify about fifty bodies laid out, "just dumped". People living nearby saw the bodies over a high wall, "then they all disappeared". Furious relatives protested and some of the dead were returned to their families for burial. The survivors were ordered not to talk about what happened. This policy subsequently attracted much criticism. There was a short announcement of the sinking in The Times in 1945, then nothing more was said officially for 70 years. There are now memorials to those lost at both Ardrossan and Brodick. The wreck site lies approximately halfway on the Caledonian MacBrayne ferry route between Ardrossan and Brodick and is a controlled site under the Protection of Military Remains Act. Teak boards from the flight deck of Dasher washed up on the beach at