The service was organised by the granddaughter of one of those who died on board HMS Picotee on 12 August 1941.

The ship was on convoy escort duty when she was torpedoed in the North Atlantic en route to Iceland.

People gathered in Chatham, Kent, where the ship was built, to remember those who lost their lives.

HMS Picotee was a Flower class corvette built by Harland and Wolff in Chatham in 1940.

German records

The ship had picked up a wireless report of an unidentified submarine in the vicinity of the convoy, but it was estimated the submarine would have been about 30 miles east of the convoy.

The anti-submarine trawler HMS Ayrshire was also in the convoy and received a message from the Picotee's crew saying they intended to sweep astern of the convoy.

The Ayrshire received no more messages from the Picotee but visibility was only about a mile and her crew assumed that the Picotee was either behind or had been called away to join another escort group.

When HMS Picotee failed to return to base in Scotland and did not answer signals, enquiries and searches began but proved fruitless and she was eventually presumed lost at sea with all 66 crew members killed.

When German records were examined after the war it was established HMS Picotee had definitely been torpedoed.

Saturday's service at St George's Church, Chatham, was organised by Debbie Laws, whose grandfather William Collins was one of those who died.

Mrs Laws said families of the victims were expected to attend, including some surviving widows, while families she was in touch with as far afield as Australia and New Zealand, had sent messages to be read out.