Sinking of the SS City of Benares

U-48 had no idea there were women and children on board. The tragedy was that the ship had been painted grey, instead of her normal peacetime bright colors. This caused the crew of U-48 to believe she was an auxiliary cruiser.[1]

The CORB children had been put to bed at 8:00, but some of their escorts were still awake.[2] Mary Cornish, forty-one, an accomplished pianist and piano teacher, went back to the dining room for her own dinner.[6] There, she lingered over a cup of coffee, chatting with chief escort, Marjorie Day, who was fifty-three.[1] There was a lull in the storm and the two went up on deck to take a stroll.[2] Cornish had only a thin skirt, blouse, and sleeveless jacket, so the walk on deck was quite chilly, but she did not complain — she was happy to be with her friend.[2] Another escort, Sybil Gilliat-Smith, a twenty-five-year-old artist and preschool teacher, soon joined them and the three women sang songs on the deck.[1] "I'll be having Christmas in Canada!" Gilliat-Smith said. With the thought of Christmas in their heads, the women began to sing Christmas carols, despite the fact that the holiday was nearly one hundred days away.[2] At about 9:50 PM, the three women separated (the storm was picking back up again) and went their own ways.[2]

Heinrich Bleichrodt, the commander of U-48, watched the liner ploughing through the waves.[8] He had angled the submarine forward from the Benares, so she was sailing towards him. He ordered two torpedoes fired at approximately 10:00 PM, but he had overestimated his angle on the bow, and both torpedoes sped past the Benares.[1] None of the lookouts in the convoy noticed the torpedo tracks.[1]

On board another ship in the convoy, the Richard de Larrinaga, an officer noticed that the gale had increased to a Force 10 (the highest measurement of an ocean gale). This meant that the wind was blowing at fifty-five miles per hour. The officer noted in the log: "Wind W.N.W. Force 10. Barometer 29.76. Whole Gale. High precipitous seas. Shipping heavy seas fore and aft. Laboring heavily. Fierce Squalls."[9]

Back on U-48, Heinrich Bleichrodt made a decision not to give up on his massive target. "We'll risk one more," he said, sending another torpedo at 10:01 PM towards the ship.[2] It sped towards the liner, unsuspected, and 119 seconds after being fired, it slammed into the Benares' side, on the port stern, exploding just beneath the children's quarters, and obliterating the children's bathrooms and the No. 5 hold at approximately 10:03 PM.[2]

Captain Nicoll was in his cabin with Mackinnon discussing when the convoy should disperse and how it should be carried out.[1] Although his cabin was just one deck beneath the bridge, at the forward part of the ship on the Boat Deck (where ten of twelve lifeboats were — the other two, Boats 11 and 12, were housed on the stern end of the sports deck, which was just aft of the promenade deck), and the torpedo had struck in the stern, he was a good seaman, and he felt the faint tremor of the blast. Immediately he knew what happened, and he quickly made his way to the bridge. His first decision was to turn on the alarm gongs, which would ring throughout the ship (though because of electrical damage they would only ring for a few minutes in the fare-paying passengers quarters).[1]

Bess Walder, fifteen, was one of forty-four girls that were asleep on the port side of the ship.[2] She had never been a sound sleeper, and though she had gotten used to the faint thrumming of the ship's engines, she was immediately awakened by the explosion.[2] That's a torpedo! she thought. Climbing down from her bunk, she shook the girl sleeping in the lower bunk, ten-year-old Ailsa Murphy.[2] The other girl, Patricia Allen, who had survived the recent U-boat attack on the Volendam, was already wake. She wasn't scared at all, remembering what had happened on the Volendam. The girl felt a sense of deja vu, saying "Fancy! It's happened again!"[1]

Bess put on her bulky shipboard life-belt (in the rush, many of the children couldn't find their kapok life-vests, or their warm clothes), found her mac coat, and helped the girls into their own life-belts.[6] She opened the door and led one of the girls, Patricia Allen, to the staircase.[6] Bess figured the girl knew what to do; she had already been through this before. Then Walder went back for Murphy only to discover the door had jammed.[10] She grabbed something (she never knew what it was), and made a hole in the door big enough for her to crawl through.[10] She found Ailsa on the floor, bleeding profusely.[10] The girl had fallen over debris, and Bess was afraid she was bleeding to death.[6] Just as she got to the door with Ailsa wrapped in her mac, the furniture in the cabin shifted, and the wardrobe slid in front of the door, the only exit.[6] The object was to big to move.[6] They were trapped in the room, which was quickly filling with water. She called out, but it seemed that no one would her her over the ringing alarm gongs, breaking glass, and people screaming.[6]

Bess Walder's best friend, Beth Cummings, fourteen, was in the adjacent cabin.[2] She had been awaken by the blast, sitting upright in her bunk, still half-asleep. She had no idea what was happening.[1] Calling for her escort, Mrs. Maud Hillman, she began to grope for the light switch. She did not hear her escort (who was presumably gathering the other children), but she found the light switch, though, to her dismay, she found that it was not working, as the lights in the children's quarters had failed.[1] Stepping out of her bunk, she found herself in a gathering pool of water.[2]

Cummings called to her two cabinmates, Joan Irving (aged 15) and Betty Unwin (12). She heard a groan from Unwin, but Joan Irving was silent.[2] Beth found her life-belt (it was, again, the bulky cork life belt) and so did Betty, but in the rush Beth realized that the other girl, Joan, who had been seasick for most of the voyage, was being left behind.[1] The girls climbed back towards the bunk and discovered that Joan was hurt, though she could find no blood. Unwin and Cummings dragged Joan out of the cabin and into the crowded corridor that was filling with water.[2]

Bess Walder was still trapped in her cabin, calling for help.[10] A crew member heard her desperate cries and began hacking at the wall with a hatchet.[6] Bess could hear the faint knocking slowly growing louder, and the man told her to step back.[6] The plaster fell away and as an arm punched through the wall, creating a hole.[2] Bess grabbed the arm and she was pulled out of the cabin. "There's one more in there," she said, referring to Ailsa Murphy.[2] The man pulled out the injured ten-year-old Ailsa Murphy, who still had Walder's coat draped over her shoulders.[10] Bess handed the girl off into the arms of an escort, just as she bumped into Beth Cummings. "We've got a job with Joan," Beth said, and the two draped each of Joan's arms over their shoulders, half-dragging, half-carrying the girl.[2] Betty Unwin followed behind along with the escort carrying Ailsa, but when the turned the corridor, they discovered wreckage was blocking the way to the main staircase.[1] The girls turned around walking the opposite way, forward, to the other main staircase. But just as the reached this stairwell, it collapsed.[1]

They found another staircase and just as they reached the top, the stairs collapsed behind them.[10] Beth told the group to wait where they were so she could inspect their muster station, the children's playroom, but she found that a jagged line ran across the deck of the massive room.[1] The torpedo had passed just under here. The children gaped at the hole, but they soon turned around, went up another staircase, to the embarkation deck, which was the promenade deck, just below the boat deck.[2][11] This deck was where the children would board lifeboats.[1]

Mary Cornish had found another staircase to the deck below. Walking along the hall she found a wall of debris blocking her way (this was the same wreckage that had stopped Bess Walder and Beth Cummings).[1] With a crewman, she began to tear away pieces of wreckage, ripping her skin in the process, making a hole big enough for her to crawl through.[2] On the other side she found Reserve Escort Lillian Towns, aged 30, who had been thrown to the floor by the blast, and upon hearing children screaming, she began to tell them everything was all right. She had managed to gather at least 10 of Mary's fifteen girls. Cornish saw the Grimmond sisters, with Gussie (the oldest), as always, leading them. Mary was relieved to have found some of her girls.[6]

Cornish and Mrs. Towns led the girls, several of whom were not from Mary's group, up to the promenade deck to the station for Lifeboat 10. Another group of girls waited to board the lifeboat, just forward of theirs (this was Boat 8), and four of Mary Cornish's girls — Gussie, Connie, and Violet Grimmond, with a seven-year-old girl named Marion Thorne — migrated to this boat.[2] Lillian Towns went off to help other children into boats, but Mary noticed that three of her girls were missing (she had no idea that two of them, Jean Forster and Maureen Dixon, were at the station for Boat 11).[2][6] She headed back towards the staircase, but an officer stopped her. "Right miss, time to go," he said, pointing Cornish back to her boat.[2] The ship was listing further to port every few seconds and Mary knew the window of escape from the decks below was closing fast.[2] She walked back to the stairwell and descended the stairs. This time, no one stopped her.[2]

Fred Steels was another one of the CORB children. His cabin, being a boy, was on the starboard side, and though the explosion was on the port side (where the CORB girls were situated) his cabin suffered damage.[2] An armoire wardrobe crashed into the wall and just as he opened his eyes the bunk above him collapsed.[2] Steels was thankful that no one had been sleeping in his top bunk.[2] The boy struggled beneath the heavy wooden planks, calling to his cabinmates. He heard one of the boys crying, searching for his glasses, but the other boy was silent.[2] It was eleven-year-old Paul Shearing, from Bournemouth, and he seemed to sleep through anything, even a huge explosion, glass shattering wood splintering, screams, alarm bells, and furniture falling.[2] Fred soon realized he was soaked. Its blood, he thought. But he heard a faint spraying sound from the wash-basin.[2] The pipes had burst, allowing water to spray all over. Suddenly Steels understood what had happened. "We've been hit!" he called to the other boys, this time Shearing awoke. Fred pushed aside some planks and was able to crawl out of the wreckage of what had once been a bunk bed. The third boy found his glasses and they stepped into the crowded hallway.[2]

Bess Walder and Beth Cummings found their lifeboat station, Lifeboat 5, though later they would both have the sneaking suspicion that this was not their assigned lifeboat (it was).[2][10][8] Their escort, Maud Hillman was here with 10 other children besides Bess Walder, Beth Cummings, Betty Unwin, Joan Irving, or Ailsa Murphy. Bess struggled to stay calm. She looked at the younger children, two were the youngest pair of siblings on board. James and Joan Spencer, ages 5 and 9.[2] "Little Jimmy Spencer" as he was known was so tiny and Bess knew he and the other little five, six, and seven year olds did not really understand what was happening.[2][8] How were these tiny little innocent children staying so calm when horror was all around them? Then she heard a voice, a very familiar one. "We be picked up," a girl said. "It'll be like before, you'll see." It was twelve-year-old Pat Allen, the Volendam survivor.[2] Yes, Bess thought, we shall be all right. But then, the biggest blow yet came: Ailsa Murphy, who had been so brave, so strong, had slipped from unconsciousness into death, "which mercifully came while she was unconscious."[6][10] The escort holding Ailsa, lowered the dead girl into the sea and said a prayer for her.[6]

The chief escort, Marjorie Day (aged 53), not unlike Mary Cornish, had been only steps away from her cabin when the ship shuddered.[2] She quickly entered her cabin (which was already filling with water), grabbing her coat and vital identification papers, and other papers for the CORB programme.[2] She managed to find the list (which she had mostly memorized) of all 90 CORB children and which groups they were in, then the escort crawled out of her wrecked cabin, finding water coursing through the hallways and corridors. She heard screams from nearby cabins. "Get up! Up you go, now!" she shouted banging on doors and pulling children from rubble.[2] Most of the children were wearing not their Kapok vests, but, as a survivor later put it, the "perfectly horrible" life-belts.[2][12] She was relieved that the children had payed attention to the drills.[2] She found the doctor, Margaret Zeal, aged 30, who began helping day in pulling children (mostly girls) from the damaged cabins. As they were doing this, one of the four nurse/stewardesses employed by Purser John Anderson, came by and told them that a boy on the starboard side had been killed in the explosion.[2] It was hardly a surprise, but it still was a terrible blow. Miss Day, Dr. Zeal, and the nurse, plus roughly fifteen girls and boys, made their way to the promenade deck.[2]

Meanwhile, most of the paying passengers had no idea what was happening.[2] Barbara Bech, fourteen, was one of ten children traveling privately in Cabin Class. She was on board the Benares with her sister, Sonia, who was eleven; her brother Derek, who was nine; and her mother, Marguerite, who was fifty-six.[3] Her father, Emil Bech, had stayed in London to manage his business. Barbara had been reading in bed, when she discovered to her surprise that it was past 10 PM.[13] Just as she turned out her bedside lamp, she heard a very faint noise, a double thud.[12] The girl sat upright in her bed (her family had booked one of the finest cabins on board — two identical cabins, bathrooms en suite, both double bedsteads, described by a passenger as "very comfortable indeed").[14] The alarm bells began to ring, and Barbara shot across the room to Sonia. "Up you go!" she cried.[2] Sonia, who had been slightly roused by the faint crash, was fully awake now, and the two girls found whatever clothing they had and put it on over their pajamas.[14] The both put on skirts, sweaters knitted by their Danish nanny, warm shirts, socks, and their new camel hair coats that their mother had bought them before the trip.[14] Barbara opened the door and bumped right into Marguerite Bech, who had already managed to clothe herself warmly, and help get her son, Derek out of the cabin (he had been seasick from the storm).[2] She had thrown out of his bed to the floor to rouse him, and she grabbed his school uniform, blazer and cap for him to put on over his pajamas.[2] The foursome left the cabins behind and walked along a corridor to the forward main staircase.[2] Sonia noticed the faint smell of cordite.[6] They got up to the Main Lounge, the paying passenger's muster station, to find that many people had already gathered here. They found a table, sat down, and waited for further orders.[6]

Another of the private passenger children, Anthony (Tony) Quinton, was with his mother in the Card Room of the Lounge when the torpedo hit.[1] Because the Card Room was situated further aft in the Lounge (which ran almost the full length of the Promenade Deck[11]) the passengers here felt the jolt.[2] The room swayed, a glass fell, and plates rattled.[2] Quinton saw what her thought was smoke lifting from the carpet, but then he realized it was dust.[1] The ex-Stowe boy went back to reading a novel he had chosen from the ship's library about Napoleon called So Great a Man.[2] A few seconds later the bells began to ring and Letitia Quinton, Tony's mother, ushered him to the main staircase, where they walked down to their cabin.[2] Described as "an ample lady of imperious mien," Mrs. Quinton stuffed her jewellery and papers into a large handbag, and, with her son, she returned to the lounge.[1] There, they waited. It never occurred to them that waiting in the Lounge could be a tragic decision.[1]

Colin Ryder Richardson, nicknamed "Will Scarlet" by the adult private passengers for his unique scarlet-colored custom hand-made life-jacket, was asleep when the torpedo hit. While most of the children travelling privately were accommodated forward, Richardson's cabin was aft.[15] He had found a ball-bearing early on in the day, which he had put in his nightstand drawer.[6] The ball rolled around in the draw, making clicking sound, and this comforted him, as he knew u-boats usually didn't attack in storms, and whenever he heard the click of the ball bearing, he knew that the liner was rolling on the waves.[15] A terrific crash awoke Colin. He smelled cordite. Glass shattered in the distance. The clicking of the ball bearing stopped momentarily. He heard shouts and screams.[6] A logical boy, Richardson knew what was happening, and he also knew he needed to stay calm. Putting on his scarlet life-vest on over his pajamas and grabbing his bulky life-belt, plus his dressing gown, Colin left his cabin, heading towards the Lounge.[6] On his way a passenger stopped him, told him nothing was wrong, and that he could go back to bed.[2] But Colin knew that something was wrong. So on he went, up the main staircase and into the Lounge, wearing only a life-vest and his pink pajamas. Neither of these could protect him from the frigid wind he was to experience that night.[2]