The Children Who Never Reached Canada

An impossible choice

Britain was enduring the Blitz. Parents had to decide whether to keep their children close while towns and cities were being bombed, or send them thousands of miles away in the hope that they would be safe.

The children who boarded the City of Benares at Liverpool were being sent away from danger. Canada was supposed to offer distance from the air raids and a refuge until the war’s threat had passed.

Their departure from the waterfront therefore carried more than passengers and luggage. It carried the trust of families who believed that separation offered their children the better chance of survival.

The attack in the North Atlantic

Four nights after the ship left Liverpool, on 17 September, the City of Benares was struck by a torpedo fired by the German submarine U-48 in the North Atlantic.

It was dark, the weather was severe and the rough sea made launching the lifeboats extraordinarily difficult. The evacuation that followed unfolded in conditions that gave the children, their escorts, the passengers and the crew little chance.

Of the 90 official CORB child evacuees, 77 died. Only 13 survived.

Lifeboat 12

One of the most remarkable survival stories belonged to Lifeboat 12. Missed during the initial search, it remained adrift for eight days.

Six evacuee boys and their escort, Mary Cornish, were among those eventually rescued from the boat. Their survival became one of the best-known episodes in the story of the sinking, but it sat beside the loss suffered by so many other families.

The end of government-sponsored overseas evacuation

The loss of the City of Benares shocked Britain. A scheme created to protect children had ended in catastrophe, and the sinking brought the government-sponsored overseas evacuation of children to an end.

The disaster exposed the terrible uncertainty behind every wartime decision. The bombs made remaining at home dangerous, but the Atlantic was a battlefield too.

Liverpool’s connection

Liverpool’s waterfront witnessed countless wartime departures, but few carried such heartbreaking consequences.

The city was the last place in Britain that these children saw before their convoy headed into the Atlantic. Behind every number was a child whose family believed they were being sent away from danger.

Today, we remember them, along with the escorts, passengers and crew who also lost their lives.