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  • Short Summary

    Survivors from sunk ship - many of them children - are brought ashore in British port.

  • Description

    Unused / unissued material - locations unclear or unknown.

    VS of the survivors from the "City of Benares"" leave their rescue ship at a British port. Lots of the survivors are children who wave at the camera. Some are wearing sailors hats from the ships which rescued them.

    Shots of some of the wounded stretcher cases being brought ashore.

    Some of the younger children are carried down the gangplank.

    (The ship was torpedoed in the Atlantic on September 16th 1940 with a loss of 260 lives, many of them children.).

    (Neg.)

  • Tags

  • Data

    Film ID:
    1635.05
    Media URN:
    60277
    Group:
    Unissued unused
    Archive:
    British Pathé
    Issue Date:
    Sound:
    mute
    hd format:
    HD Cam
    Stock:
    Black & White
    Duration:
    00:02:20:00
    Time in/Out:
    01:07:25:00 / 01:09:45:00
    Canister:
    UN 254 G

Comments (2)

  1. Kathleen Gill says

    The SS City of Benares was actually torpedoed on the 17 Sept not 16th. The boys in this film are 5 of the 6 who were in a lifeboat for 8 days. They were eventually picked up by HMS Anthony.

    Of the 90 child evacuees aboard only 13 survived. They had been on their way to Canada. The majority of the survivors had been picked up by HMS Hurricane on the 18 Sept.

    The boys in the film are Derek Capel, Billy Short, Kenneth Sparks, Howard Claytor and Freddie Steels. The 6th boy Paul Shearing was ill and was in the sickbay.

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  2. MotherGoose says

    But for circumstances (being rushed, as an Asthmatic, to the Royal Free Hospital in London) I was supposed to be on the City of Benares to Canada as a refugee. Today I am 83 - and today is my birthday - 1st January. So this is not a comment on your film but a personal message of thanks to whatever deity caused me to not be on board! Later we made reservations for a seaside holiday in Clacton-upon-Sea and sent our luggage in advance. But that property was bombed before we arrived. I don\'t know the fate of our luggage. I did get evacuated though, for the children were evacuated from the Royal Free Hospital to a country hospital in Arlesey - which, I think, is in Hertfordshire - or Bedfordshire. Michael

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