Terry Underwood He Had Lost His Glasses and There Was No Sound from Way to Describe It, Is of the Moss Family from Graig • the Blue Plaque the Third Lad
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S. S. City of Benares Captain Heinrich Bleichrodt raises the periscope of his submarine U48 of the German navy and peers out into the darkness of the Atlantic. In the distance he can see the British convoy OB-213 which had left Liverpool on the 13th September 1940 heading on its 2500 mile journey across the north Atlantic to Canada. S.O.S. the Newsletter of the Captain Bleichrodt already knew which ship was to be his target and was only waiting for the escorting Friends of the Newport Ship Royal Navy ships to leave during the 10 hours he had been shadowing the convoy. War honours depended on tonnages sunk and not the strategic importance of Racing through heavy seas, it was 24 hours by the targets and his target for the night was to be the time HMS Hurricane reached the scene and biggest ship in the convoy leading the middle column, immediately started taking survivors on board. One the S. S. City of Benares cruise liner. On board this lifeboat in the distance was left as it appeared to be liner were 406 persons including the crew, empty and from a second ship torpedoed, the S.S. passengers and 90 children being evacuated to Marina just after the liner. Little did the captain of the Canada by the Children’s Overseas Reception Board Hurricane realise that this lifeboat, number 12 (CORB). contained over 40 people including members of the Ten Years On... crew, passengers and six of the children, all boys The Ship fully excavated in 2002 Seeing that the convoy was now unescorted and including Fred Steels and Paul Sheering and it was deemed by the Royal Navy to be out of the war zone eight days later that these survivors were rescued No. 20 £2.00 and in safe waters, Captain Bleichrodt ordered his after being spotted from the air and picked up by Summer 2012 Free to Members crew to prepare for an attack on the convoy. At 23.15 HMS Anthony. hours he fires two torpedoes at the City of Benares The Friends of the Newport Ship and much to his dismay both missed. The tracks of There were in total aboard the City of Benares, 406 C/o FWD Law, Clifton Chambers, these torpedoes were not noticed by anyone on the persons made up of 215 crew, 191 adult passengers 12 Clifton Road, St. Woolos vessels of the convoy and it continued on its way and 90 children. Of these there were only 158 Newport, NP20 4EW completely unaware and without taking any avoiding survivors and 77 of the children died this day. Telephone: 01633 215707 action. Again another torpedo is launched and at 00.01 hours on the 18th September 1940 the City of Many towns through out the UK were affected by the Charity Number 1105449 Benares is struck in the stern. loss of the children and Cardiff and Newport were • Editors comments included in these. In Cardiff, the Came family who • A ten year review Mayhem breaks out amongst the passengers and lived in Earl Street, Grangetown lost their two boys by Toby Jones crew with some passengers including some of the Lewis and James aged 11 and 13 years old Newport children trapped in their cabins by falling timbers and suffered many more losses, John Pemberton aged • A secret compartment metal. 11 year old Fred Steels suddenly awoke with 10 from Queens Hill, Roger James Poole aged 11 • Cordage from the Ship the noise of the explosion and with glass shattering from Allteryn Avenue, brother and sister William and • A Polish Stern and heavy wooden planks falling trapping him in his Anita Rees aged 12 and 14 of Caeperllan Road and • Fleas and more bunk. Another child in the cabin was crying because perhaps one of the most tragic losses if that is any • Terry Underwood he had lost his glasses and there was no sound from way to describe it, is of the Moss family from Graig • The blue plaque the third lad. With great effort Fred managed to free Park Circle, Malpas who lost their three daughters, • Sixty barrels himself from the bunk and along with the third boy, Aileen, Marion and Rita aged 12, 10 and 8 • IKUWA Conference now wake, they manage to exit the cabin and make respectively. • When is an olive not an olive? their way to the deck. Fred and one of his cabin • The Freeze Drier mates, Paul Sheering, would end up in lifeboat Parents in many areas of the UK lost their whole • The new website number 12, they never saw their third cabin mate families in minutes as the City of Benares sank. again. The City of Banares was evacuated within 15 Because of this loss, there were never anymore • FRAWG Conference minutes and sank 30 minutes after being hit by the sailings of evacuees out of the UK and the sinking of • Advert for the Secretary explosion, 253 miles West-Southwest of Rockall. the City of Benares featured some years later in the • S.S. City of Benares Nuremburg war trials. The views given in this newsletter are those HMS Hurricane some 400 mile away received a of the contributors and do not necessarily message that the City of Benares had been sunk and Alan Smith represent the views of the Friends as an was sent to rescue survivors who had been reported organisation. in lifeboats. This year marks the 10th year since the City Council has commissioned a report on possible locations and funding potential for a discovery of the ship. new museum, and we wait to hear what will be The Freeze Drier The Friends, Newport City Council, the proposed. It seems likely that the Riverfront 2012 is an exciting year for the Medieval archaeologists involved, and everyone else that basement will be rejected as being too small and Ship project. Not only is it the 10yr has helped in any way, should be delighted with with access problems. It also seems possible anniversary of the discovery of the vessel the success in the recovery, recording and that, subject to financial grants, the present but we’ve reached an important benchmark conservation of the ship and its contents. museum in John Frost Square could be closed in the conservation process – freeze drying. and its collections combined with the Newport An enormous machine has been brought However two big tasks remain. The first task is Ship in a new museum. This has the advantage onto site which will allow us to freeze the to provide a full and scientific publication on the of bringing the ship together with other related artefactual material in a vacuum chamber. ship, much larger and more detailed than the collections, such as the Museum’s Roman boat This process allows the remaining water successful guide book already produced by the (the Barlands’ Farm boat), in one place. It will and ice inside the timbers to be driven off Friends. This will be a vital record that will allow also reduce running costs. However it should without causing damage to the cellular the ship to be internationally known and not be forgotten that the Newport Museum and structure of the timbers. The end product is a dry, strong, and stable artefact that can be readily researched. A good deal in the way of scientific Art Gallery has very fine collections, covering handled. Having such timbers will provide us with the literal building blocks to reassemble the assessments has already been completed, and archaeology, local history, social history, medieval ship. We are working in cooperation with York Archaeological Trust, and plan to complete there are already a number of reports on the industrial history, natural history and geology, the freeze drying in the next 2.5 years. conservation and recording process. However fine and decorative arts. It is to be hoped that the The first load of planking from the Newport Ship has now been placed in the new freeze dryer. We an account of the excavation will have to be future of all these collections will be given proper expect this batch to be finished in the next couple of weeks. Visitors on open days will hopefully get written before everyone forgets what happened, consideration in future plans. For example it to view some of these timbers. and of course a full report needs to be written would be a shame to lose public access to the most important Roman mosaics in Wales to allow showing a likely reconstruction of the ship and Emma Routley assessing its features and background. This will space for the most important Roman boat from depend on further research but much progress Wales. In a nutshell any new museum must have has already been made. sufficient room to show these important collections. If this is not possible then suitable The second task is to find a home for the ship display space will have to found for them Moving On, A New Website for the FONS. elsewhere. when the present warehouse is vacated in 2014. By the time this newsletter is published, the new as number of visits, length of visits and location Ideally this should be in the centre of Newport website for the FONS will be in the final stages of the people involved. These are things we have where it can be seen by the most people. The The Editors. of development. The beta version of the site is no idea of at the moment and it would be helpful already running and this will be expanded and to find them out.