SS City of Benares: The Evacuee Children Sent to Safety Who Never Reached Canada

SS City of Benares: The Evacuee Children Sent to Safety Who Never Reached Canada

Imagine saying goodbye to your child because you believed sending them thousands of miles away was the safest thing you could do.

You watch them leave Britain, knowing you may not see them for years.

But at least, you tell yourself, they will be far away from the bombs.

Then the message arrives.

Their ship has been sunk.

In our recent posts, we have been looking at the experiences of children during the Second World War - evacuation, separation from parents and the different ways children learned to live with fear and loss.

Today I want to look at one of the most heart-breaking chapters of that story.

The SS City of Benares.

By the summer of 1940, Britain faced the possibility of invasion and increasing air attacks. Thousands of parents were considering whether their children might be safer not in the British countryside, but on the other side of the world.

The government-backed Children's Overseas Reception Board, usually known as CORB, arranged for children to be evacuated to countries including Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. Between July and September 1940, more than 2,600 children were sent overseas under the scheme.

For many parents, Canada must have seemed almost impossibly distant from the war.

On the 13th of September 1940, the SS City of Benares left Liverpool as part of a convoy bound across the Atlantic.

Among those aboard were 90 children travelling under the CORB scheme, aged between five and fifteen, accompanied by adult escorts.

There must have been excitement mixed with fear. Some children were facing a long sea voyage without their parents, heading towards families and homes they had never seen.

Four days later, everything changed.

Late on the night of the 17th of September, in rough Atlantic weather, the City of Benares was attacked by the German submarine U-48.

A torpedo struck the ship.

The City of Benares went down quickly, sinking in little more than half an hour. In darkness, cold and heavy seas, passengers and crew struggled to launch lifeboats. Some boats were damaged or overturned, while people were thrown into the freezing Atlantic.

For the children, the situation was terrifying.

Of the 90 CORB evacuee children, just 13 survived.

Seventy-seven died.

The loss was particularly cruel because these children had been on board the ship for one reason - their families believed they were being taken somewhere safer. The National Archives records that the disaster effectively brought the government-sponsored overseas evacuation programme to an end.

But among the tragedy was an extraordinary story of survival.

One lifeboat, Lifeboat No. 12, was not found during the initial rescue operation.

Inside were survivors including six evacuee boys and their escort, music teacher Mary Cornish.

They remained adrift in the Atlantic for eight days.

Cornish tried to keep the boys' spirits up, food and water were carefully rationed and those in the boat had to endure cold, exhaustion and uncertainty.

Eventually, a Sunderland flying boat spotted them.

Help was called and the survivors were rescued by HMS Anthony.

It is difficult to imagine what those parents at home experienced while waiting for news.

Evacuation is sometimes remembered through photographs of children standing on railway platforms with labels attached to their coats. But the story of the City of Benares reminds us that wartime parents were being asked to make almost impossible decisions.

Keep your child close and risk the bombs.

Send them away and hope that distance would protect them.

For the families of those 77 children, a decision made out of love and desperation to keep them safe ended in unimaginable loss.

And after the sinking of the City of Benares, Britain largely abandoned the idea that sending children across the sea could offer the safety everyone had hoped for.

Had you been a parent in 1940, would you have considered sending your child overseas to escape the war?

 

The First Anglo-Afghan War - Part Five: Britain Returned to Kabul After the Disaster

The First Anglo-Afghan War - Part Five: Britain Returned to Kabul After the Disaster

Seven months earlier, a British-led army had stumbled out of Kabul into the snow.

Almost the entire column had been destroyed.

Now another army was heading towards the Afghan capital.

But this time Britain was not returning to conquer Afghanistan.

It was returning to recover its prisoners, restore some of its shattered military reputation and make certain that Kabul remembered what had happened.

In Part Four, we followed the disastrous retreat from Kabul in January 1842, when approximately 4,500 British and Indian troops and thousands of camp followers attempted to reach Jalalabad. Very few survived the journey, while others were taken prisoner.

The disaster caused shock across British India.

Today I want to continue the story, because the First Anglo-Afghan War did not end with that retreat.

Within months, British-led forces were marching back.

One of the men given the task was Major-General George Pollock.

Pollock advanced from Peshawar with what became widely known as the Army of Retribution. In April 1842, his troops forced their way through the Khyber Pass and reached Jalalabad, where Major-General Robert Sale and his garrison had survived months of siege.

But Pollock did not stop there.

By late summer, his army began advancing towards Kabul.

At the same time, another force under Major-General William Nott was approaching from Kandahar. Nott had successfully held Kandahar during the uprising and was now making his own way towards the Afghan capital.

For Pollock's men, the journey carried an uncomfortable reminder of what had happened only months earlier.

As they passed through the Khurd Kabul Pass, they came across the remains of those who had died during Elphinstone's retreat.

The army was travelling across the same ground where thousands of soldiers, servants and families had perished in January.

There would be fighting too.

Akbar Khan, who had played such an important role in the destruction of the retreating Kabul army, attempted to stop Pollock's advance. British-led forces defeated his men at Jagdalak and Tezeen, clearing the way towards the capital.

On the 15th of September 1842, Pollock reached Kabul.

Two days later, Nott's army arrived.

Less than a year after the uprising had driven the British from the city, British-led troops were once again outside Kabul.

But there was another reason for returning.

Prisoners from the January retreat were still being held.

Among them was Lady Florentia Sale, the wife of General Robert Sale, with her daughter and other women, children, officers and soldiers.

As Pollock approached Kabul, the prisoners had been moved towards Bamiyan, apparently to keep them out of his reach.

Pollock sent Sir Richmond Shakespear with cavalry to find them, while Robert Sale later followed with additional troops.

But there is an interesting detail that is sometimes lost when this story is described simply as a British rescue.

The prisoners had already been working to secure their own freedom.

They negotiated with the man guarding them and agreed payments in exchange for their release. Shakespear's force met the freed captives on their way back, and soon afterwards Robert Sale was reunited with his wife and daughter.

After everything Lady Sale had experienced during the retreat and months of captivity, it must have been an extraordinary reunion.

The return to Kabul, however, soon took a darker turn.

The return to Kabul also had a deliberate punitive purpose. British leaders wanted to restore military prestige and exact retribution for the destruction of the previous army.

Pollock therefore ordered the destruction of Kabul's great covered bazaar and part of the citadel.

The bazaar was deliberately blown up, soldiers entered the city, looting followed, buildings were damaged and fires spread through parts of Kabul.

It was presented at the time as punishment.

For civilians living in the city, the consequences were very different.

And after all of that, Britain did something which perhaps tells us more about the war than any triumphant announcement could.

It left.

On the 12th of October 1842, the British-led armies began withdrawing from Kabul towards Jalalabad and eventually India.

There would be no attempt to permanently occupy the Afghan capital.

Shah Shuja, the ruler Britain had placed on the throne in 1839, had already been killed.

Dost Mohammad, the man Britain had originally removed, was released from captivity and eventually returned to Afghanistan.

So after three years of invasion, occupation, rebellion, retreat and retaliation, the political situation moved remarkably close to where it had begun.

Britain could claim that its army had returned to Kabul.

Its prisoners had been recovered and its soldiers had demonstrated that the January disaster had not destroyed British military power.

But it had come at an enormous cost.

Thousands were dead.

Kabul had suffered occupation, uprising and retaliation.

And the ruler Britain had removed would soon be back on the throne.

The First Anglo-Afghan War had begun with fears about influence, power and control.

It ended with Britain marching away.

And perhaps that is the most striking part of the entire story.

After everything that had happened, what exactly had the war achieved?

The School Day That Ended in Disaster: The Sandhurst Road School Bombing

The School Day That Ended in Disaster: The Sandhurst Road School Bombing

Imagine sending your child to school one cold January morning.

By lunchtime, you hear aircraft overhead.

Then an explosion.

And when you reach the school, part of the building has simply disappeared.

We have touched on the bombing of Sandhurst Road School in Catford, south-east London, before when looking at the dangers faced by children during the Second World War. But today I want to go a little deeper into what actually happened on that terrible day, because behind the often-repeated casualty figures is a story of children eating their lunch, teachers trying to protect them and parents desperately searching through rubble.

It was Wednesday, the 20th of January 1943.

By then Britain had been at war for more than three years. The worst months of the Blitz had passed, and although air raids remained a danger, for many London children school life had begun to settle into something resembling a routine.

At Sandhurst Road School, it was lunchtime.

Some pupils had gone home to eat. Others remained at school.

At around 12.30pm, German fighter-bombers were attacking parts of south-east London. They had approached at low level, and the public air-raid warning came far too late to give the school the sort of warning everyone had become used to expecting.

Then a 500kg high-explosive bomb struck Sandhurst Road School.

The central section of the building was devastated.

The timing could scarcely have been worse. Children were gathered for their midday meal, and the dining area was among the parts of the school badly affected.

In all, 38 children and six teachers lost their lives, while more than 60 children and staff were injured. Thirty-two children died at the school and another six later died from their injuries.

The six teachers who died were Connie Taylor, Ethel Betts, Virginia Carr, Mary Jukes, Gladys Knowelden and Harriet Langdon.

But what happened immediately afterwards is something I think deserves just as much attention.

Parents began arriving.

Try to imagine what that must have been like.

There were bricks, timber and debris where classrooms had stood only minutes before, and children and adults were trapped beneath the wreckage. Civil Defence workers, Heavy Rescue Squads, volunteers and servicemen rushed to help. Some parents could not simply stand and wait and began digging through the ruins themselves, searching for their sons and daughters. An inquiry afterwards acknowledged that controlling desperate relatives at the scene had been almost impossible.

Rescue work continued as people tried to reach those buried beneath the collapsed building.

For some families there was relief.

Their child had survived.

For others, the waiting ended very differently.

The scale of the loss was felt far beyond the school gates. Thirty-one of the children and one teacher were buried together at Hither Green Cemetery, and around 7,000 mourners are reported to have attended the funeral service conducted by the Bishop of Southwark.

Think about that for a moment.

Thousands of people standing together while the community buried children who, only days earlier, had been sitting in classrooms, talking to their friends and eating their school lunches.

Sandhurst Road School was eventually rebuilt.

Today it is Sandhurst Primary School, and the people who died there have not been forgotten. A commemorative stained-glass window and memorial garden remain at the school, and remembrance events continue to mark the anniversary of the bombing.

Perhaps that is why this particular wartime story stays with me.

We often describe children on the Home Front as resilient — and many undoubtedly were. They adapted to shelters, rationing, evacuation and the absence of parents serving away from home.

But Sandhurst Road School reminds us that behind that resilience was something much more frightening.

For some children, the war did not simply interrupt lessons.

It entered the classroom.

Do you think stories such as Sandhurst Road School should be given a bigger place when we talk about the experiences of British children during the Second World War?

Richard Rich: The Tudor Survivor Who Rose While Other Men Fell Around Him

Richard Rich: The Tudor Survivor Who Rose While Other Men Fell Around Him

In our last Tudor post, we looked at Nicholas Carew, a man who had been close enough to Henry VIII to hunt, joust and spend years in the king’s company - only to discover that royal friendship offered very little protection when suspicion turned against him.

Today I want to look at a man who followed a rather different path through the Tudor court.

Richard Rich.

While men such as Carew, Thomas More and eventually Thomas Cromwell fell, Rich somehow kept climbing.

Born in around 1496, Richard trained in law and was associated with the Middle Temple by 1516, one of the institutions where aspiring barristers studied and built their legal careers. He was intelligent, ambitious and apparently very good at recognising where power lay, and making certain that he remained close to it.

By the early 1530s he was building a career in Henry VIII’s government, eventually becoming Solicitor General.

It was during the downfall of Sir Thomas More that Rich gained the reputation which has followed him for nearly five centuries.

More would not affirm Henry VIII's supremacy over the Church in England, but had been extremely careful about what he actually said. Silence, he hoped, would prevent the government from proving treason.

Then Richard Rich gave evidence.

Rich claimed that during a conversation in the Tower of London, More had denied Parliament’s power to make Henry head of the Church.

More fiercely denied the accusation and effectively accused Rich of lying.

Nevertheless, Rich's evidence was crucial. More was found guilty of treason on the 1st of July 1535 and executed on the 6th of July.

And Richard Rich continued to rise.

When Henry VIII began closing England's monasteries, a new organisation called the Court of Augmentations was created to manage the enormous quantities of land and wealth passing into royal hands.

Rich became its Chancellor.

It was an extraordinarily powerful position and one which also helped Rich become a substantial landowner himself.

His career was not finished with controversy either.

In 1546, Protestant reformer Anne Askew was imprisoned in the Tower. Authorities wanted her to reveal the names of other reformers, particularly influential women who might have connections with Queen Catherine Parr.

Askew later described being placed on the rack and claimed that Richard Rich and Lord Chancellor Thomas Wriothesley personally operated it. Other accounts record that the Tower's lieutenant had refused. She would later be executed for heresy.

But once again, Rich survived.

Henry VIII died in 1547. Rather than disappearing with the old king's regime, Richard was created Baron Rich of Leez and became Lord Chancellor during the reign of the young Edward VI.

Then came another extraordinary change.

Edward died in 1553 and the Catholic Mary I took the throne.

Men who had prospered during the Protestant reforms suddenly found themselves in danger.

Rich adapted again.

He served under Mary's government and remained an important figure.

Then, when Elizabeth I became queen in 1558 and England changed religious direction once more, Rich survived that transition too.

By the time he died on the 12th of June 1567, Richard Rich had lived through the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary I and for nearly the first nine years of Elizabeth I.

He had accumulated considerable wealth and estates and, late in his life, founded Felsted School in Essex in 1564.

His story makes an interesting contrast with Nicholas Carew.

Carew had enjoyed the king's friendship but still ended on the scaffold.

Richard Rich seems to have understood something perhaps even more valuable in Tudor England: when the people around you were falling, knowing when to change direction could keep you alive.

But Rich's extraordinary survival came with a reputation that has lasted for centuries.

Was Richard Rich simply a highly capable Tudor servant doing what his monarchs demanded - or was he one of the most ruthless opportunists of Henry VIII's England?

What do you think?

The Children Who Learned to Live With War: How Britain’s Young Coped With Fear, Loss and Danger

The Children Who Learned to Live With War: How Britain’s Young Coped With Fear, Loss and Danger

What happens to a child when the frightening becomes normal?

When being woken by an air-raid siren is no longer unusual. When Dad has gone away and nobody will quite explain when he is coming home. When the house at the end of the street disappears overnight, or a familiar face is suddenly missing from the classroom.

Over the last few days, we have looked at evacuation, separation and the children who became casualties of the Second World War. Today I want to look at something slightly different.

How did the children who survived these experiences actually cope with them?

The answer is not as simple as we might expect.

Some children appear to have adapted remarkably well. They played, laughed, went to school when they could and sometimes turned the strange new world around them into an adventure. Bomb sites became forbidden playgrounds, pieces of shrapnel became treasures and children recreated what they saw around them in their games, pretending to be wardens, soldiers or nurses.

It did not necessarily mean they were unaffected. Play was one of the ways children made sense of things they could not control.

Other children struggled far more.

Some evacuees cried themselves to sleep because they desperately missed home. Younger children could become withdrawn or cling to adults, while others became angry or difficult. Bed-wetting, prolonged crying and changes in behaviour were observed among some children separated from their families.

Perhaps surprisingly, wartime observations made by Anna Freud and Dorothy Burlingham at the Hampstead War Nurseries suggested that, for many young children, separation from the people they loved could be more upsetting than the bombing itself. Their nurseries cared for children whose homes had been destroyed or whose family circumstances had been disrupted, and particular importance was placed on maintaining contact with mothers and keeping brothers and sisters together where possible.

Parents themselves often tried desperately to create a sense of normality.

Children did not always know how frightened the adults around them really were.

A mother might smile while taking her children into the shelter and save her tears until they were asleep. Fathers built bunks and seats inside Anderson shelters. Families played cards, sang songs, told stories or brought something to eat. One wartime recollection describes a mother teaching her daughter to knit by candlelight while they sat together in the cellar waiting for the next explosion.

It was not going to stop the bombs.

But it gave the child something ordinary to concentrate on.

Even some of the equipment designed to protect children was made less frightening. Gas masks intended for small children were brightly coloured and became known as “Mickey Mouse” masks. Behind that cheerful appearance was an extremely serious purpose, but adults understood that a frightening-looking mask was something a small child might resist wearing.

Sometimes parents simply did not tell children everything.

News of casualties might be discussed after bedtime. Worries about a father serving abroad, a missing relative or a badly damaged home could be softened until adults knew more. Of course children still overheard conversations, noticed the whispered voices and recognised when Mum had been crying. Protecting them completely was impossible.

And parents were not doing it alone.

Neighbours looked after one another’s children. Teachers continued lessons in shelters and unfamiliar classrooms. Churches and public buildings became places of safety. Foster families opened their homes to evacuees, although experiences varied enormously.

 Volunteers provided food and practical help after raids, while organisations such as the Women’s Voluntary Service supported people whose homes had been damaged or destroyed.

For a frightened child, something as simple as a familiar teacher, a kind neighbour or another child to play with could provide a little stability when almost everything else had changed.

But we should be careful about the familiar image of the cheerful wartime child who simply “got on with it”.

Many did.

Some even remembered parts of their wartime childhood with affection: the friendships, communal singing, countryside adventures and extraordinary freedom.

Others carried very different memories into adulthood.

The same air raid that one child slept through could leave another terrified. The same evacuation that gave one child a loving second family could leave another feeling abandoned and unwanted.

Perhaps that is the most important thing to remember.

There was no single wartime childhood.

Behind every photograph of smiling children carrying gas-mask boxes was an individual child trying, in their own way, to understand a world that had suddenly become frighteningly uncertain.

Do you have a parent, grandparent or other relative who ever spoke about how they coped with being a child during the Second World War?

Harald Hardrada: The Warrior King Who Invaded England Before William Landed

Harald Hardrada: The Warrior King Who Invaded England Before William Landed

In my last post, we looked at the other men who believed England's crown could, or should, be theirs. Today I want to look more closely at perhaps the most formidable of them all.

Harald Hardrada, King of Norway.

Long before Harald came to England, he had already lived a life that sounds almost too dramatic to be true.

Harald Sigurdsson was born in Norway at around 1015. As a teenager he fought alongside his half-brother, King Olaf Haraldsson, at the Battle of Stiklestad in 1030. Olaf was killed and, according to later accounts, Harald was wounded. Following the defeat, he fled Norway.

But that was only the beginning.

Harald travelled east, spending time in Kievan Rus before eventually reaching Constantinople. There he served in the famous Varangian Guard, an elite force employed by the Byzantine emperors.

During these years he campaigned in different parts of the Byzantine world and gained considerable military experience and wealth.

By the time Harald returned to Scandinavia, he was certainly no inexperienced prince hoping somebody might hand him a crown.

He became joint King of Norway with his nephew Magnus the Good in 1046 and, following Magnus's death the following year, Harald became sole king.

For years he fought unsuccessfully to gain control of Denmark before eventually turning his attention towards another prize.

England.

Harald's claim to the English throne was complicated.

It rested largely on an alleged earlier agreement between King Harthacnut and Magnus the Good concerning succession to their kingdoms. Magnus had previously asserted a claim to England, and Harald regarded himself as having inherited that claim.

It may not have been the strongest claim to a throne.

But Harald had something considerably more persuasive than paperwork.

An army.

And in 1066 he found an English ally.

Tostig Godwinson.

Tostig was the brother of King Harold Godwinson, but after losing his position as Earl of Northumbria and being driven into exile, the relationship between the brothers had broken down badly.

Now Tostig joined Harald.

That meant Harold Godwinson was not simply facing a foreign invasion.

His own brother was helping to lead it.

In September 1066, Harald's Norwegian fleet arrived in northern England. On the 20th of September, Harald and Tostig defeated the forces of the Earls Edwin and Morcar at the Battle of Fulford, near York.

York then submitted.

For a brief moment, Harald Hardrada must have believed his gamble was working.

But Harold Godwinson was coming.

On the 25th of September 1066, the two armies met at Stamford Bridge.

Harald and Tostig appear to have been caught by surprise. What followed was a ferocious battle in which the Norwegian army was decisively defeated. Harald Hardrada was killed, traditionally said to have been struck in the throat by an arrow, and Tostig was also killed.

Harald Hardrada's extraordinary career was over.

His defeat at Stamford Bridge is often described as marking the symbolic end of the Viking Age, although Scandinavian warfare and raiding certainly did not suddenly disappear after 1066.

Harold Godwinson had defeated one of the most experienced warriors in Europe.

England was safe.

Or so it might have seemed.

Because just three days later, on the 28th of September 1066, William of Normandy landed at Pevensey.

Harold had dealt with one man who wanted his crown.

Now another was waiting for him in the south.

And this time, the ending would be very different.

Do you think Harald Hardrada could actually have become King of England if he had defeated Harold at Stamford Bridge?

 

The Children Caught in Britain’s War: How Bombs, Shelters and Evacuation Still Failed Them

The Children Caught in Britain’s War: How Bombs, Shelters and Evacuation Still Failed Them

Imagine sending your child away because you believed it would save their life.

Then imagine discovering that the journey to safety had placed them in danger too.

Or deciding to keep them at home, only for a bomb to fall on their school.

Over the last few days, we have looked at the children who were evacuated, the brothers and sisters who were sometimes separated and those who stayed behind with their families.

Today I want to look at the darker side of their story.

The children who became casualties of the Second World War.

When we hear the word casualty, we often think of soldiers. But this was a war in which the battlefield came directly to British towns and cities, and thousands of children were killed or seriously injured.

During the Blitz alone, 7,736 children were killed and another 7,622 were seriously wounded.

Bombing was the most obvious danger.

Children were killed when their homes were destroyed, when streets were hit and when bombs fell on schools, shops and other buildings. Even when a particular building was not being deliberately targeted, bombing from the air could never be precise enough to protect the civilians living around factories, docks, railway lines and other important targets.

One heartbreaking example happened at Sandhurst Road School in Catford, south-east London.

On the 20th of January 1943, the children were having lunch when a German bomb hit the school.

Thirty-eight pupils and six members of staff were killed and around sixty more people were injured.

Among those who died was twelve-year-old Sylvia May Ellen Head.

But bombs were not the only reason children became casualties.

Sometimes the attempt to protect people created dangers of its own.

On the 3rd of March 1943, an air-raid warning sent people rushing towards Bethnal Green Underground station in London, which was being used as a shelter.

A woman and child fell near the bottom of the entrance steps and people behind continued moving forward in the darkness. Within seconds, a terrible crush developed.

One hundred and seventy-three people died.

Sixty-two of them were children.

Perhaps the most extraordinary part of the story is that no enemy bomb caused those deaths. People had gone underground because they believed it was the safest place to be.

Even evacuation itself could end in tragedy.

Some British children were sent abroad because Canada and other parts of the Commonwealth were thought to offer even greater safety than the British countryside.

On the 17th of September 1940, the SS City of Benares was sailing towards Canada carrying ninety child evacuees when it was torpedoed in the Atlantic.

Only thirteen of those ninety children survived.

Seventy-seven were lost.

The disaster helped bring the government-sponsored overseas evacuation scheme to an end.

There was another cruel twist to evacuation.

When the expected bombing failed to arrive during the early months of the war, many parents decided they had had enough of being separated from their children.

By January 1940, almost half of the evacuees had returned home.

Then, later that year, the Blitz began.

Some children therefore found themselves back in exactly the towns and cities they had originally been moved away from to protect them.

And the danger continued even after an air raid had ended.

There could be burning buildings, shattered glass, unstable ruins and unexploded bombs. Children were drawn to bomb sites, the piles of rubble could quickly become makeshift playgrounds. They climbed through ruined buildings, collected pieces of metal and sometimes came across unexploded bombs or ammunition. What looked like an exciting wartime souvenir could still be extremely dangerous, and children were repeatedly warned never to touch unfamiliar objects.

It is easy to look back at photographs of wartime children with their gas-mask boxes and little suitcases and think mainly about evacuation, rationing and disrupted schooling.

But childhood itself had become dangerous.

A child could be sitting at a school desk, asleep in bed, travelling to safety or walking towards an air-raid shelter when the war suddenly reached them.

Perhaps that is one of the saddest things about the Home Front.

Adults could build shelters, arrange evacuations, issue gas masks and make endless plans to keep children safe.

But they could never remove the danger completely.

Can anyone in your family remember being a child during the bombing, or being hurried into an air-raid shelter when the sirens sounded?