The Children
of The City of Benares
The City Line steamship, The City of Benares, sailed from her home port, Liverpool, on Friday September 13th 1940, an inauspicious day. On board she carried a
very special cargo, children, 90 city kids whom their parents deemed would be safer overseas than facing the bombing at home. The City of Benares was a
fine modern ship, built on the Clyde in Glasgow in 1936, 11,080 tons and capable of sixteen knots. She had two centrally mounted funnels in yellow, white and black,
and she certainly did not look like a freighter, more of a cruise ship. When she was 600 miles from the nearest land south of Iceland she was hit at
approximately ten o'clock at night by a single torpedo fired from the highly successful German submarine U48. The pandemonium that broke out after that can only
be imagined as survivors attempted to find their way to the lifeboats. But due to rough seas and Force 5 winds, lowering the lifeboats proved terribly difficult, and
several capsized. 248 of the 406 people on board, were lost, including more than 70 of the children. One day and one night later HMS Hurricane, a
modern Havant class destroyer launched only in September 1939, came to their rescue and picked up most of the survivors. Unfortunately she missed one of the
lifeboats, Lifeboat 12, and this remained alone on the ocean for eight days and nights in heavy seas and freezing weather. In that lifeboat were 30 Indian
seaman, a Polish millionaire trader, several merchant sailors, 6 evacuee boys, a Roman Catholic priest who had volunteered to accompany the children, and Mary
Cornish their supervisor. Whilst on the boat rations consisted of one ship's biscuit, a piece of tinned fruit, a little juice from the tin for the lucky ones, and a sip of
water, per day. Nothing else. One of the Indian seamen died shortly afterwards through drinking salt water. Luckily, another British destroyer finally spotted
them, the Acasta class HMS Anthony, built in 1931, a fast little ship capable of 36 knots. In the intervening time, some of the parents of the boys in that boat had
been informed their children had been lost. They were in for a big surprise. The sinking of the City of Benares prompted an immediate end to the policy of
overseas evacuation for British city children during World War II, though there are conflicting reports as to whether that was entirely the case. Certainly private
evacuations continued afterwards. Incidentally, HMS Hurricane had a chequered history. She was sunk whilst berthed in Liverpool docks by German raiders
on the night of May 8th 1941, but she was raised and repaired and returned to service. Then she was sunk again in the mid Atlantic near the Azores in December
1943 while serving with the task force of the American escort carrier USS Card. At the time of the sinking of the City of Benares, the U.S. Secretary of State
Mr Cordell Hull described the action as a "Most Dastardly Act". Perhaps it contributed in a tiny way towards hastening America's entry into the war. |