MARCH 29, 1967: Stricken Torrey Canyon oil tanker is bombed by Navy and RAF in bid to sink it off Cornish coast

MARCH 29, 1967: The Royal Air Force and Royal Navy unleashed a two-day bombing campaign on the stricken Torrey Canyon oil tanker in a bid to sink it on this day in 1967.

Bomber crews dropped 19 tons of ordnance on the Liberian ship after 32million gallons of crude oil gushed into the sea off the Cornish coast in Britain’s worst spill.

The RAF also dropped petrol on the remaining oil - which had affected hundreds of miles of coastline in Britain, France, Guernsey and Spain – and burned it off.

A British Pathé newsreel shows the Cornwall as a 'battle area' as 2,000 soldiers and marines were filmed rolling in vast amounts of detergent and manning the pumps.

And they were seen cleaning the previously pristine beaches