Blitz Kids (13 page)

On the night of the City bombing, Richard and his fellow fire-fighters drove from Tottenham to Newgate Street near St Paul's. They were told to save the cathedral. As burning buildings collapsed around them, they aimed their hoses at the walls of the cathedral to cool them and prevent fire from reaching them. The youngster was one of the lucky ones: in a nearby street a wall collapsed, killing the firemen beneath it. He remained on duty in the City for three days before returning to Tottenham.

The next morning, Peter Richards made his way to work at the main postal depot in the City of London: ‘I remember the looks of incredulity on the faces of office workers as they returned to the City from their homes in the suburbs. They could not reconcile themselves to the extent of the damage.' He picked his way through streets that had changed beyond all recognition. He went out to deliver mail to addresses that were no more than piles of smouldering ruins. In the previous weeks and months he had already seen the city change as familiar landmarks were destroyed and building after building disappeared. Then this one raid tore the very heart out of the City:

Later that day, as he took his lunch break in the Post Office canteen, he watched as a fellow worker complained that lamb chops were off the menu. At first he felt sorry for the man and then wondered why he was so concerned about food when the city was in ruins? He thought back to less than a year ago when he and his pal John Cotter had been so angry that the war had meant their holiday was cancelled. Just months earlier he had remained selfishly aloof from the realities of war. Now he was able to reflect on his own self. Was he now changing? Was he maturing enough to understand what conflict really meant?

The busy port seemed a far cry from the streets of St John’s Wood where Colin Ryder Richardson had lived pre-war, or the lanes of Sussex where he had spent the early months of war, or rural Wales where the family had then settled. However, as Colin and his mother emerged from Liverpool’s Lime Street station, the contrast could not have been greater. The city had recently been blighted by the Luftwaffe. In peacetime a young public-schoolboy like Colin would probably never had a reason to travel north to a grand yet tough city like Liverpool, which had become, for so many, the gateway to England. In a few short years its docks would become the entry-point for American servicemen heading to the Old World to join the struggle against Nazism. However, in 1940 it was still predominantly a port of exit, taking refugees like the eleven-year-old schoolboy across the Atlantic to safety.

Colin’s parents had decided he would join the SS
City of Benares
, a passenger liner due to depart for Canada, and from there it was agreed he would travel to America’s Long Island and live with a New York banker for the rest of the war. The reasons for the family’s decision to send Colin overseas were simple, practical ones. It was known that the Germans searched for Jews in occupied countries by checking who had been circumcised, making it likely the Nazis would use the same
method if they ever occupied Britain. Colin had been circumcised and risked being wrongly identified as Jewish, so it would be safer to get him away.

However, such concerns were not upmost in the boy’s mind. He was delighted, particularly at the thought that he was heading to a land of cowboys and Indians: ‘I thought of the sun and the hills. The cowboys – eating around campfires: “Ride ’em cowboy!” When they said I was going to New York, I thought I’d bagged another town! My only concern was fitting in with the American children.’ Enthused by films, comic books and action stories, Colin believed adventure awaited him across the Atlantic. What he did not know then, however, was that the adventure – if it could be called that – would actually come in the cold, dark waters of that ocean.

The 485-foot long
City of Benares
was to carry 191 passengers, including 90 children – 46 boys and 44 girls – heading to North America to escape the incendiaries and high explosive raining down on British cities. Built in Glasgow, and launched in 1936, the
Benares
had served the imperial passenger trade between Liverpool and Bombay. Crewed by 215 sailors, many of them Indians, the 11,000-ton liner – with its fresh coat of paint and newly installed guns – was to be the home to children selected as part of a new evacuation scheme: the Children’s Overseas Reception Board (CORB). It was a proposed scheme that had initially met significant opposition, not least from the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, as opponents argued that dividing families and removing children across the Atlantic sent out a defeatist message. Churchill felt it was better to stand and fight together and damn the consequences. In ‘Total War’ children were, after all, a significant asset. Had King George himself not set such an example by keeping his wife and children at his side even as his capital – and eventually, his palace – came under aerial assault?

Despite such deep opposition, on 18 June 1940 the Cabinet had finally acquiesced and the scheme went ahead; it was ordered that all overseas evacuees should be between five and fifteen years old. The scheme proved highly popular as in just two weeks the CORB offices received more than 200,000 applications for just 20,000 places from parents eager to send their offspring to safety.

There was an emotional and rational dilemma for parents considering
this option. Evacuating your children to the nearby countryside was a burden for most parents, but there was always the hope of weekend reunions. Those sending children overseas, however, would miss out on so much of their child’s development. A teenage girl might return home as a woman – even a married woman if the war lasted long enough. Yet the child would almost certainly be safe from war in Canada. In the cases of the
Benares
children, the argument for safety had triumphed over that of separation. Better a distant yet living child than the chance to visit a nearby grave.

Colin Ryder Richardson was travelling independently but the CORB children on the ship had an orderly introduction to evacuation. They had been summoned to Liverpool by letter telling their parents they had been granted a place in the programme. A visit from a CORB representative had followed to explain the details and announce that the children would depart within a week. Those chosen had travelled by train to Liverpool, and then were sent to a local school where they could form into a group, establish relationships and meet their adult escorts.

However, it was during the two days they had spent at that school that Liverpool received its first visit from the Luftwaffe. As the bombs fell, the children listened to the pounding of the anti-aircraft guns and, for those who had not yet encountered modern warfare on their doorsteps, the impact of the bombs and the roar of the guns was a stark reminder of why their parents had applied for them to leave the country. On Thursday, 12 September, the gathered children left the school ready for their great adventure. The journey to the
Benares
took them through a landscape completely altered by war, as the city displayed the scars of the bombing. The children arrived at the dockside like the earlier evacuees, clutching small suitcases and gas masks, and with a cardboard label tied to their lapels. Some were already evacuation veterans who had been separated from their families at the outbreak of war.

From the moment the children walked up the gangplank to board the ship, they were in awe of their new home. The vast passenger liner, towering over the dockside, was an introduction to a world few had previously experienced. There was the mysteriously exotic crew of Indian stewards in their immaculately laundered jackets. Inside they
found bunk beds, portholes, play rooms and deck games like something from Hollywood.

Dressed in a bright red jacket, Colin Ryder Richardson stood out from the other children. But it was no ordinary jacket. Instead, it had been specially created by his mother ready for his Atlantic journey. She had sewn a life jacket inside a red silk jacket, which in turn had been stuffed with kapok to provide extra insulation. As she had told him: ‘Never take your life jacket off.’ However, despite his mother’s obvious concern, there was no emotional farewell between them. Colin had handed over his gas mask and then she had handed him his passport, telling him: ‘There’s your ship. Goodbye, Colin.’ Then, she had given him a quick hug and departed, choosing not to hang around waving at the departing ship. In a way, the eleven year old felt relieved as he saw some of the other children engaged in tearful farewells which he knew were not for him.

The
Benares
was sailing into a dangerously uncertain world. Not only had the departure been delayed by sea mines dropped into the Mersey by the Luftwaffe two weeks earlier, but the very first CORB evacuation ship, the SS
Volendam
, had been torpedoed on the second day of its voyage. Luckily, all of its passengers, including 320 evacuee children, were saved. The impact of this near disaster had been obscured by the start of the Blitz. Every bomb that fell on British towns, blasting away the bricks and mortar across the land, threatened the nation’s children, so the news of 320 shipwrecked survivors had failed to deter the CORB parents. Indeed, two of the
Benares
children were actually veterans of the
Volendam
who had been shipwrecked in the Atlantic, had returned to England to find their homes destroyed by bombs and as a result had immediately been allowed to seek evacuation on the next available ship.

Once the convoy was underway the children soon found ways to entertain themselves. In the days ahead, the
Benares
’s decks played host to games including tug-of-war, tennis and even a lassoing contest, all of which helped to occupy the evacuees. Coming from a land already feeling the pinch of rationing, the children were thrilled to find they could purchase sweets, chocolate and lemonade and at meal times they ordered whatever they desired, with no need to surrender their ration books. Meat and milk, fresh fruit and vegetables, freshly baked bread – everything appeared on their tables at meal times.

Colin Ryder Richardson settled into his cabin and started to enjoy the crossing. His mother had packed his travelling trunk and he was astonished to find he had a dozen pairs of underwear. He liked the food onboard, was thrilled by the sight of barefoot Lascar seamen wearing traditional white Indian clothes and was fascinated to discover the ship had a gun mounted on the decks, although the gunners manning it told him they didn’t actually have any ammunition. He spent his time reading books and magazines in the library and playing games on the decks: ‘It was quite windy and we got deckchairs and, using the seat like a sail, would try to get them to go from one side of the ship to the other. Sometimes they went overboard. We would roar with laughter.’ Officially, Colin was sharing the cabin with Laszlo Raskai, a Hungarian journalist who was supposed to act as his guardian for the duration of the crossing. However, the two had little contact: Colin was free to do as he liked, whilst Raskai spent his time in the lounges and cocktail bar.

By 17 September, Convoy OB-213 and the SS
Benares
were 600 miles from land. Seemingly safe from German raiders, the Royal Navy withdrew and headed homewards to protect shipping nearer the coast. With the convoy spread through the waters, and now seemingly alone in the ocean, the
Benares
headed into a storm. The clouds had come down, the winds and rains had gathered and the waves were rolling, all portents of the rising storm. By nine o’clock that night a force-ten gale was blowing, with squalls rocking the ship. Yet the real danger was not the storm, but what lurked beneath the waves.

That night Colin Ryder Richardson went to bed in his usual manner. Unlike some of the other children, who had followed the instruction that they could take off their life jackets, Colin had continued to heed his mother’s warning and before retiring for the night, he pulled on the life jacket over his pyjamas. As he lay in bed reading a comic, the eleven year old listened to the rolling of a ball-bearing he had placed in his bedside drawer, beating out the movement of the ship. That night Colin’s ball-bearing crashed from side to side, telling him the ship was in dangerously heavy waters.

Below the waves, the convoy was being trailed by
U-48
, a German U-boat, captained by Heinrich Bleichrodt. He was waiting until the sea calmed enough for him to launch his attack. Finally, he gave the order to fire and two torpedoes erupted from their tubes, surging through the
water. The crew listened for the signature crash of an explosion but nothing came. Then the captain gave another order and a third torpedo was fired. The 500-pound, explosive-packed weapon sped towards the ship. It was three minutes past ten on the evening of 17 September 1940 when the third torpedo crashed home, piercing hold number five, directly beneath the children’s quarters.

Colin Ryder Richardson remembered the moment the torpedo struck the
Benares
:

Colin acted quickly. With his life jacket already on over his pyjamas, he stepped into his slippers and put on his dressing gown. He also grabbed the wallet his father had given him containing
£
10 and slipped it into his pocket.

Elsewhere, one of the girls awoke, uncertain of what had disturbed her, reached for the light switch and couldn’t understand why it wouldn’t work. But, stepping down from her bunk, she discovered why, as her bare feet were immediately submerged in a pool of water. Others heard the impact and were immediately stirred into action as the boat shuddered and shivered around them. The crashing and splintering they heard meant just one thing: they were in danger. The children who were quickest to react immediately roused their companions, forcing them from their beds, pressing life jackets into fumbling fingers and readying them for whatever awaited. Barefooted kids leapt from their bunks only to slice open their feet on broken glass, others fumbled in the darkness for their glasses. Some had to push debris away before they could rise. One boy was forced to break through the wall, hacking at the plaster with a chair leg, to escape his cabin.

As the children began to leave their cabins, older children began to assist the younger evacuees, checking their life jackets, hurrying them
along corridors and making sure they knew where to go. Two of the older girls, Bess Walder and Beth Cummings, rushed to help Beth’s roommate Joan Irving who had been injured in the explosion. It wasn’t heroics: it was simply their duty.

Some of the survivors later recalled being gripped by a surge of adrenaline that spurred them on. Strangely, despite their fear, it just seemed like another new adventure. In the first days of the journey, despite some homesickness most of the children had been gripped by a sense of excitement at the thought of heading west but it was something far more violent and disturbing that now faced them.

Quickly, the children gathered at the prearranged points. Colin went up to the cocktail lounge where his lifeboat was to assemble. There was little panic. Instead, people were milling around wondering what had happened as the ship’s alarm bells rang in the background. Colin kept quiet, not wanting to alert the adults to the fact the ship had been torpedoed. Each lifeboat had its own position where groups assembled to meet their fellow passengers and the sailors who were to assist them and crew the boats. Most looked around and noted how calm everyone seemed to be. There were no crying children, just boys and girls quietly standing and shivering in their nightclothes and slippers as the storm raged around them. Slowly, the situation began to worsen. The weather grew increasingly harsh, soaking the children, some of whom were without coats or shoes. Then as a number of injured children, bloodied and bandaged, were brought on deck, fear grew and a few began to cry.