Final voyage
On 13 September 1940 Benares departed Liverpool, England, sailing in Convoy OB 213, bound for Montreal, with 408 people — 90 CORB children (ages five to fifteen), their ten escorts (3 men, 7 women), 91 fare-paying passengers (including ten children and forty-three women), 6 convoy representatives, 168 Indian Lascars (the catering crew was from Portuguese Goa) and 43 British crew (including five women).[9] She was under the command of Captain Landles Nicoll and the commodore of the convoy, Admiral Edmond J. G. Mackinnon. As she was the lead ship of the convoy, she was placed in the centre column, column 5.[9] The convoy had the protection of a destroyer, HMS Winchelsea (D46), accompanied by two corvettes — HMS Gloxinia and HMS Gladiolus (K34).[10]
Some of the CORB children could rightly be called refugees. Two of the children, Patricia (Pat) Allen (of Liverpool), twelve, and Michael Brooker (of Kent), ten, called 'veterans' by the other children, had survived the U-boat attack on Volendam, which had been carrying 321 CORB children, 31 escorts, 255 other passengers, and 273 crew.[11] The GS U-60 (1939) hit Volendam with two torpedoes, only one of which detonated. The other was found later in the ship's bow. The ship did not sink, but all the passengers were still evacuated in eighteen lifeboats.[9] There was only one casualty, the ship's purser, who fell between a lifeboat and the ship, and subsequently drowned.[12] Patricia Allen came home to discover her house had been destroyed, while Michael Brooker's had an unexploded bomb in it.[10]
The Grimmond home in Brixton had been bombed too, so Edward Grimmond and his wife, Hannah, decided to send five of their eleven children off to Sherwood Lane School in Liverpool (where the CORB children were staying before they boarded Benares).[11] They were Augusta (Gussie), thirteen; Violet, ten; Constance (Connie), nine; Edward (Eddie), eight; and Leonard (Lenny), five.[9] These children had been on the reserve list but when the escorts saw the ordeal the children had been through, they took them off the reserve list and added them to the list of children who would be sailing on Benares. It was a decision they would regret for the rest of their lives.[9]
The six escorts assigned to care for CORB children were Miss Mary Cornish, an accomplished pianist who taught lessons; Miss Sybil Gilliat-Smith, a preschool teacher, accomplished artist, and ambulance driver during air raids. Mrs. Maud Hillman, an infant teacher; Mr. Michael Rennie, who felt a calling to the church and was going to go into theology after the trip; Reverend William Henry King, 28, an Anglican cleric; and Father Roderick (Rory) O'Sullivan,, a Roman Catholic priest. Accompanying the escorts who cared for the children were senior escort Miss Marjorie Day and a teacher at a private girls school; reserve escort Mrs. Lilian Towns, an ambulance driver from New Zealand, plus doctor Mrs. Margaret Zeal, and her assistant, as nurse, Miss Dorothy Smith.[11] Two of the paying passengers, Anne Fleetwood-Hesketh (the mother of Roger Fleetwood-Hesketh) and movie director, Ruby Grierson spent their day with the children. Mrs. Fleetwood-Hesketh had volunteered early on in the voyage to help with the children, while Grierson filmed the children for a new movie about the government evacuation of children.[9]
Among the paying passengers were some twenty foreign passengers, several of whom were fleeing from the Nazis. Many had made heart-wrenching escapes, in which they had to leave their families behind. Helen Schoenbach, a twenty-two year old German girl, had escaped from Germany with her family, now she had to leave them in England.[13] She remembered the streets in Germany, Catholics, Jews, Slavs and the other so called 'inferior races' being taken away by soldiers, either to be killed or to work in death camps and concentration camps.[13] One of the passengers, Mrs. Amelie von Ingersleben, a German baroness and author, had managed to cleverly escape from a concentration camp.[9][14]
Among the paying passengers, ten of whom were the young sons and daughters of civilians, were the British Parliamentarian, Colonel James Baldwin-Webb, on his way to Canada to help with the Red Cross.[9] Rudolf Olden, a German author, was forced to sail to North America, as he had been exiled from Germany for criticizing Hitler in his newspaper.[9] With him was his wife Ika, though their daughter, Mary Olden, had been sent ahead of them on another passenger liner.[9] Monika Lanyi, daughter of the famed German writer Thomas Mann (who had also been exiled from Germany) was traveling with her husband, Jeno.[9] Alderman William Golightly, of the Northumberland Miners' Association, was on his way to a business meeting.[9] Also aboard was the playwright, Arthur Wimperis, and the fashion couple Henry and Phyllis Digby-Morton.[9]
The ten children among the fare-paying passengers included the three Bech children — Barbara, fourteen; Sonia, eleven; and Derek, nine — were travelling with their mother Marguerite.[11] They were leaving their home in Bognor Regis, while their father, Emil, would stay in London to continue his Danish porcelain business.[11] Patricia (Pat) Bulmer, fourteen, was traveling with her school-friend, Dorothy Galliard, fifteen, and her mother, Alice Bulmer; she was leaving her home in Wallasey.[9] Lawrence and Patricia Croasdaile, two and nine, were traveling with their mother Florence, an American woman to live with their grandmother in Canada because their father had been captured by the Nazis when his ship was torpedoed and they were waiting for news about him.[11] Diana "Honey" Pine, six, was traveling with her mother Emma.[15] Anthony Quinton, fifteen, was traveling with his mother Letitia, whose mother had asked them to join her in Canada away from the war ("You're no use there," she wrote to them).[11]
There were also four teenage children, three of whom were part of the Choat family.[9] Frank Choat had served in Gallipoli and had been handicapped by his injuries. When he was taken to England he met his wife, Sylvia, and they fell in love.[9] Now, after finishing their three children's education, they were returning to Canada.[9] Their children were Russell Choat, sixteen; Peter Choat, eighteen, and Rachel Choat, nineteen.[9] The other teenage child was Norma Jacoby, sixteen; she was traveling alone.[16]
Sinking
Late in the evening of 17 September, City of Benares was sighted by U-48, commanded by Kapitänleutnant Heinrich Bleichrodt, who fired two torpedoes at her at 10:00 PM. Both torpedoes missed, and at 10:01 PM on 17 September, the U-boat fired another torpedo at her. The torpedo struck the ship in the stern at 10:03 PM, causing her to sink within 31 minutes, 253 mi west-southwest of Rockall and 630 mi from the nearest inhabited land.
Fifteen minutes after the torpedo hit, the captain ordered the vessel abandoned, though there were difficulties with lowering the lifeboats on each side of the ship (only one lifeboat of twelve aboard were lowered correctly). HMS Hurricane (H06) arrived on the scene 24 hours later, picked up 105 survivors, and landed them at Greenock. Among the survivors were 21 women, seven CORB children (four boys and three girls), and six fare-paying passenger children (three boys and three girls). Only one family that included more than three people completely survived (Barbara, Derek, and Sonia Bech — aged 14, 9, and 11 — with their mother, Marguerite). Of the other families or groups of passengers travelling together that contained more than three people, all the Grimmonds died, all three Pugh brothers (travelling with CORB) died, all three Beasley sisters (travelling with CORB), all three Moss sisters (travelling with CORB), all three Croasdailes (travelling privately), Frank Choat died (his wife and children survived), and Pat Bulmer was the only survivor of her group (her mother and school friend both died, likely in the capsizing of Lifeboat 1). During the attack, SS Marina (1935) was also torpedoed. Hurricane's crew was unaware that the lifeboat was from Marina, but it was still searching for lifeboats and rafts. Lifeboat 12 had drifted out of the "search box" organized by a Hurricane crew member, but night came and Hurricane abandoned her search. It was assumed that Lifeboat 12 had been overcome by the seas. As a result, Lifeboat 12 was left alone at sea. Its passengers had three weeks' supply of food but enough water for only one week.
