I think my neighbor, Jenny Woods, was a passenger on the S.S. City of Benares, though I can't be sure. She moved a long while back, she and my mother remained in contact, but she died some time ago. I used to spend a lot of time at her house, and when I got a bit older she used to tell me stories about her life during the war. Once she told me that her parents sent her overseas on a ship to get away from the bombs, but it was torpedoed. She never really said anything more about it. I asked her once, but she said it was too sad and horrible for me to hear as I was only nine. Two years later she moved away and only my mother stayed close with her. I sent her a letter every year, and she sent one back, but I never bothered to ask her about her experience. She died in 2007. My mother never threw out her old letters and when my mother died back in 2013 when she was seventy, I was left with all her things, including a letter (most of the other letters are missing, I'm still looking for them) from Miss Woods. Here is an excerpt:
"Of course, we never got far on that ship, the S.S. [name illegible, possibly the City of Benares?], it never made it further than 400 miles out from [name illegible].
At about 11:00 PM, we were torpedoed. The torpedo had cleaved the engines clean in half, cutting power instantly. I had awoken to the blast and I quickly felt for the light, but I found that the power was not working. I couldn't find my life belt, but the girls [her cabin friends, I guess] urged me to go to deck without it.
The boat was already listing to one side, the left side I think, and we [not sure what she wrote after this, her writing is neat, but the letter is so old and some of the ink has sort of dissapeared] people screaming, we crawled to the staircase, dozens and dozens of people were already there. The liner lurched again and more people screamed. Everyone was holding onto the rails of the stairs like monkeys.
We managed to find our way to deck in the darkness, the crew [illegible again] into a lifeboat with some forty or fifty other women and children. Yes, there were so many children, a lot of them were little too, they could barely keep their eyes open, they were so tired. Oh, it makes me cry when I think of them. It really breaks your heart when you see their little faces, and know that the Nazis had no mercy for them. Oh yes, the submarine must have known there were women and children on that liner. When the ship went down, they came up to talk to the people. They didn't do anything for us, in fact, I believe they pointed us in the incorrect direction of land so that we would all perish.
Anyways, the lifeboat was filling with people, and Laurie, Lucy, Helen, and I [her cabin friends, apparently] looked over and saw the boat further astern of ours being lowered. A wave came up and smashed it. No one from that boat survived. Foward of our boat, another lifeboat tipped, sending all the people, mainly women, I think, into the water (which was very cold, by the way). Our lifeboat was next, we were on the right side of the ship, the high side, and it took the crew quite some time to get it into the water. We shall be safe now, I thought. Helen was hurt, but there was a nurse in the boat who was caring for her.
Then, I can barely bear to think of it again, a wave hit our boat, and we turned turtle, everyone was thrown into the water, most of the little ones drowned. When I surfaced again, Helen was not there. The nurse was not there. Mrs. Raymond and her two children were not there. I saw the boat [the lifeboat, presumably] overturned, some distance away. I swam to it, knowing that there was no point in letting myself die. That would give the Nazis what they want I thought. From there I watched a second torpedo slam into the ship, dooming it for good. She sank, on end rearing up into the air. One or two of the lifeboats were destroyed by the second torpedo.
Then, the submarine emerged, black, long, and menacing. The roughly twenty people who had managed to survive the capsizing and were clinging to the boat like me screamed. A little boy whimpered. The captain, or one of the crew. leaned over the submarine's rail and said to us in perfect English "what is the name of your ship." The people began shouting out names. One said "Queen Mary", another yelled "the Empress of Australia", but the crew silenced them, and an officer cried out our true name. The submarine commander asked for our tonnage and cargo. The officer gave out tonnage, but about the cargo, he said "only women and children."
We clung to the boat for some time, and after hours and hours, I finally noticed that Lucy was not there. Nor Laurie. Nor Mrs. Campbell or Miss Jane [name illegible]. I was alone, the sole survivor of this lifeboat. A few hours later a lifeboat picked me up and we were rescued about 23 hours after the liner went down. About three hundred or four hundred people were lost, including Johnny [her brother], who was only 7, when the second torpedo hit [I think she means that he died when the second torpedo hit]. I had been fifteen and I was one of only thirty or forty children saved."
She writes a lot more, but that is mostly the part about the shipwreck. I am still trying to figure out what ship she sailed on. Since she said there were so many children on board, I assume that it was the City of Benares, having just recently read some posts about it on here. Can anyone identify the ship?
Thanks,
Trish
"Of course, we never got far on that ship, the S.S. [name illegible, possibly the City of Benares?], it never made it further than 400 miles out from [name illegible].
At about 11:00 PM, we were torpedoed. The torpedo had cleaved the engines clean in half, cutting power instantly. I had awoken to the blast and I quickly felt for the light, but I found that the power was not working. I couldn't find my life belt, but the girls [her cabin friends, I guess] urged me to go to deck without it.
The boat was already listing to one side, the left side I think, and we [not sure what she wrote after this, her writing is neat, but the letter is so old and some of the ink has sort of dissapeared] people screaming, we crawled to the staircase, dozens and dozens of people were already there. The liner lurched again and more people screamed. Everyone was holding onto the rails of the stairs like monkeys.
We managed to find our way to deck in the darkness, the crew [illegible again] into a lifeboat with some forty or fifty other women and children. Yes, there were so many children, a lot of them were little too, they could barely keep their eyes open, they were so tired. Oh, it makes me cry when I think of them. It really breaks your heart when you see their little faces, and know that the Nazis had no mercy for them. Oh yes, the submarine must have known there were women and children on that liner. When the ship went down, they came up to talk to the people. They didn't do anything for us, in fact, I believe they pointed us in the incorrect direction of land so that we would all perish.
Anyways, the lifeboat was filling with people, and Laurie, Lucy, Helen, and I [her cabin friends, apparently] looked over and saw the boat further astern of ours being lowered. A wave came up and smashed it. No one from that boat survived. Foward of our boat, another lifeboat tipped, sending all the people, mainly women, I think, into the water (which was very cold, by the way). Our lifeboat was next, we were on the right side of the ship, the high side, and it took the crew quite some time to get it into the water. We shall be safe now, I thought. Helen was hurt, but there was a nurse in the boat who was caring for her.
Then, I can barely bear to think of it again, a wave hit our boat, and we turned turtle, everyone was thrown into the water, most of the little ones drowned. When I surfaced again, Helen was not there. The nurse was not there. Mrs. Raymond and her two children were not there. I saw the boat [the lifeboat, presumably] overturned, some distance away. I swam to it, knowing that there was no point in letting myself die. That would give the Nazis what they want I thought. From there I watched a second torpedo slam into the ship, dooming it for good. She sank, on end rearing up into the air. One or two of the lifeboats were destroyed by the second torpedo.
Then, the submarine emerged, black, long, and menacing. The roughly twenty people who had managed to survive the capsizing and were clinging to the boat like me screamed. A little boy whimpered. The captain, or one of the crew. leaned over the submarine's rail and said to us in perfect English "what is the name of your ship." The people began shouting out names. One said "Queen Mary", another yelled "the Empress of Australia", but the crew silenced them, and an officer cried out our true name. The submarine commander asked for our tonnage and cargo. The officer gave out tonnage, but about the cargo, he said "only women and children."
We clung to the boat for some time, and after hours and hours, I finally noticed that Lucy was not there. Nor Laurie. Nor Mrs. Campbell or Miss Jane [name illegible]. I was alone, the sole survivor of this lifeboat. A few hours later a lifeboat picked me up and we were rescued about 23 hours after the liner went down. About three hundred or four hundred people were lost, including Johnny [her brother], who was only 7, when the second torpedo hit [I think she means that he died when the second torpedo hit]. I had been fifteen and I was one of only thirty or forty children saved."
She writes a lot more, but that is mostly the part about the shipwreck. I am still trying to figure out what ship she sailed on. Since she said there were so many children on board, I assume that it was the City of Benares, having just recently read some posts about it on here. Can anyone identify the ship?
Thanks,
Trish
