The Day War Broke Out Read online

  In the first winter of war, 1939/40, many of the 200,000 children who had remained in London, or who had returned home for Christmas, did not receive any education at all. Teachers who had accompanied their pupils to the reception areas frequently followed their pupils when they returned home to the cities. Some took the initiative and offered private tuition for those families who could afford it. Others volunteered for a home-tuition scheme under which children could join classes held in private homes – or in any building that could be used temporarily.

  Lilla Fox was a young teacher working in Dagenham, Essex, in 1939.

  At 4am in the dark, we gathered all the children and their younger brothers and sisters at the school and then led them to the Dagenham Docks. At the docks we found two paddle steamers waiting for us – we had no idea they would be there and we had no idea where we were going. My school was girls-only, but on the boat, we had the boys’ school as well. The boat was absolutely packed, it was a wonder no one went overboard. As it got light, it turned into a beautiful bright September day. Everyone was so well behaved, considering we had no idea where we were going.

  Eventually we stopped at Great Yarmouth. We were taken to a school, where I was put in a metalwork room with my pupils and their siblings. In the night, we were woken by an air-raid siren and we were instructed to take all the children outside, but nothing happened. Next day, there was a huge muddle as they tried to sort out where all the children would go. My headmistress was a fierce lady but for once this worked in our favour as she was able to organise accommodation for all the children in our school in the same village – other schools had their children spread over lots of different villages.

  For all the children from my school, it was their first experience of the countryside. Thatched houses, stone cottages, lots of sunflowers . . . It was a huge culture shock for the children, yet most of them behaved very well. We shared the local school – they would teach their children in the morning and we taught ours in the afternoon.

  At first, us teachers were living in an upper-class hotel right on the edge of a cliff. There were still paying guests in the hotel so we had to use the back stairs and eat our meals separately. After a while a few of us moved out into a bungalow with some people who had not taken in any evacuated children.

  Most of the time we enjoyed being there. The young children were fascinated by all the animals in the country, especially the pigs. But after a while children drifted back to Dagenham – it seemed safe for them to be there – so eventually we teachers were sent back too. We weren’t allowed to teach at our Dagenham school as there was no [air-raid] shelter there. Instead, we set work and the children came in to collect it and do it at home. Finally, when a shelter was built at the school, the children could come back to lessons.

  Eventually, it was decided it was too dangerous for the children to remain in Dagenham, so Lilla and the children were evacuated again.

  This time it was much better organised and the children were sent to a village in the Cotswolds. I joined them a couple of days later because I had fallen off my bike when I was cycling in the blackout. Again, we shared a school with the local children and again, after a little while, the children drifted back home. So again, we were sent back. But this time things were very different. It was September 1940 and the Blitz had started; by then, most of the male teachers had been sent off to war. Things had really changed.

  The Blitz (September 1940 to May 1941) would devastate British cities and ports, including London, Birmingham, Belfast, Coventry, Glasgow, Liverpool, Sheffield and Manchester. Yet even before this, a second wave of voluntary evacuation took place in 1940 when 200,000 children were moved from Britain’s cities to safer, rural areas.

  That spring, as the German forces attacked and overran Denmark, Holland, Belgium, Norway and, eventually, France, forcing the evacuation of British and French troops from Dunkirk, the Phoney War ended. Understandably, many well-to-do families were now determined to get their children as far away from Britain as possible. Around 14,000 children were sent off to be privately evacuated to the USA and Canada, mostly to relatives or foster families, some as part of cultural exchanges. Aware of the need to help those families who could not afford to send their children overseas, a government-funded scheme, the Children’s Overseas Reception Board (CORB), was set up to sponsor children’s evacuation to Canada, the USA, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. Thousands applied.

  Between July and September 1940, the Children’s Overseas Reception Board organised the evacuation, by sea, of over 2,500 British children escaping the threat of German invasion. It was a well-intentioned scheme but sadly, short-lived, and ended in October 1940 – German U-boats in the Atlantic had made such evacuation attempts far too dangerous.

  ‘I WAS ONE OF THE LUCKY ONES . . .’

  John Baker, seven, and his brother Bobby, twelve, were amongst a hundred children who boarded the liner SS City of Benares when it set sail from Liverpool to cross the Atlantic to Canada on Friday, 13 September 1940. Ten of the hundred children aboard, some travelling with their parents, were from families who had paid privately for the journey. The rest were travelling free of charge, courtesy of the government-funded CORB scheme.

  The Baker family lived in Southall, West London. Milkman Albert and his wife Lucy had opted to apply for the CORB-sponsored scheme some months earlier. By the time the Baker brothers boarded the ship, the Blitz – the massive, round-the-clock air raids on London and other industrial cities – had just started.

  ‘My mother had two sisters in Canada so as we’d be living with family, my parents decided to apply to send us,’ recalled John, now eighty-five. ‘I was told it was a holiday and we’d be staying with our aunt and uncle – I was very excited.’

  Ten children from Southall, including the Baker brothers, were accompanied by an adult guardian as their journey began on the London to Liverpool train. (Each group of ten children on the CORB scheme had to be escorted by an adult guardian.) The passengers stopped in Liverpool for a few days.

  The luxury liner City of Benares was four years old and had recently been commandeered into service in the CORB scheme. This was to be its first Atlantic crossing. Finally, it set sail on 13 September. The Baker brothers were enthralled by their journey on the big liner.

  ‘The food was wonderful. We’d been living with rationing and suddenly we could have anything we wanted, things like ice cream and peaches,’ recalled John.

  The brothers shared a cabin in the bowels of the ship with two other youngsters. John was always wandering off and getting lost, trying the patience of Bobby, who was looking after him. For John the big attraction was the restaurant and the ice cream so Bobby kept having to dash off to find him.

  The ship’s crew knew that German U-boats were lurking. off the coast of Ireland. Some had already sunk several British ships. One, the U-48, had claimed eighteen Allied ships since the outbreak of war just over a year earlier, so the City of Benares was escorted in a nineteen-strong convoy for five days. But after 300 miles it was believed the ship was out of the danger zone and the naval escorts peeled off to protect other ships.

  Just after 10pm on 18 September, John was woken by the alarm bell. He rushed around the cabin, waking the others. At first, they didn’t want to get up, believing it was just a drill, but it was not a drill: the ship had been torpedoed by the U-48, which was in the area by chance. Within thirty minutes, the City of Benares had sunk.

  The young passengers were ushered up onto the deck with all due haste. In the rush, John realised he had forgotten his life jacket. He wanted to go back to get it, but Bobby stopped him.

  Somehow I ended up with a life jacket – I think it was Bobby’s. We were packed, like sardines, into a lifeboat and they started to lower it. Then one of the davits [one of a pair of small cranes used to lower and retrieve lifeboats] jammed. The lifeboat tilted, shooting a lot of people into the water.

  I was at the bow end and hung onto a thwart [seat]. The st
ern was in the water. I was somehow separated from Bobby – I didn’t know where he was. So, the people who fell out were left behind. I think Bobby may have been among them.

  The ship was still travelling at about 10 knots.

  The crew managed to free the davit, but they couldn’t release the lifeboat so they lowered a rope ladder and told us to climb back up onto the boat.

  A sailor said to me: ‘Don’t look down, climb up as fast as you can.’

  I went up like a jack rabbit and once we were on deck, they hauled the boat up and made preparations to launch it again.

  Once on deck, John started searching for his brother desperately. ‘But the deck was rolling and I nearly slipped overboard. Luckily, a sailor near by grabbed me and hauled me back.’ Within minutes, he was ushered down again into a waiting lifeboat.

  This time, the attempt was successful. He remained in the lifeboat with the other survivors until they were picked up by HMS Hurricane, which had travelled 200 miles to help the sinking ship. The destroyer then transported its shivering, dishevelled cargo to Glasgow, where John was reunited with his anxious waiting parents.

  ‘I was one of the lucky ones. I don’t remember how long I was in the lifeboat, but we were picked up fairly soon. But others were still in the water.’

  Of the 406 passengers and crew on board the City of Benares, 258 had died or drowned, clinging hopelessly to wreckage and life rafts in the freezing Atlantic. There were 148 survivors. Just twenty of the one hundred children on board survived. John’s brother Bobby was not among them.

  ‘We never talked about it,’ said John of his heartbroken parents’ reaction to the tragic events.

  I suppose it was too painful. They had lost a son when they thought they were sending us away from danger.

  Bobby and I were typical of an older and younger brother. I was a nuisance but he always looked after me. I always felt I survived because he gave me his life jacket.

  He made the ultimate sacrifice.

  Just two weeks before the City of Benares tragedy, another CORB-sponsored voyage from Liverpool to Canada and the US had ended when the vessel was struck by two torpedoes. The Dutch passenger ship SS Volendam, carrying 879 passengers, with 320 children among them, had also been torpedoed by a German U-boat. Fortunately, the passengers and crew got away in lifeboats and were rescued by other ships in the convoy, while the Volendam was taken under tow and eventually repaired to sail another day. All but one of those aboard survived. But after this incident, and the loss of the City of Benares with so many lives, a huge public outcry led to the cancellation of the CORB-sponsored evacuation scheme: it was just too dangerous.

  4

  THE DAY OUR LIVES CHANGED

  THE BROADCAST BY PRIME MINISTER NEVILLE CHAMBERLAIN on 3 September 1939 was destined to be remembered in many different ways. These are some memories of that day:

  THE TEACHER

  Mary Preston* was a Liverpool school teacher, aged twenty-six. On the day war broke out, she had already arranged to help evacuate a group of schoolchildren by train from Liverpool to Shrewsbury. (Throughout this text, names marked with an asterisk have been changed.)

  Nine am. Ate a normal breakfast when notice of ultimatum came through. Very upset.

  Lines of ‘the naked earth is warm with spring’ ran through my head. Went upstairs, read the poem ‘Into Battle’ by Julian Grenfell [soldier and celebrated First World War poet who died of wounds in 1915]. Got very upset about it all and had a good cry. Packed up my goods and went out at 11am, specially to avoid emotion at 11.15. Saw friend evacuating blind people. Had two hectic hours shepherding mothers and half-Chinese children to station.

  Were given a corridor train which stank. When under way, two of us sat in corridor on floor, eating lunch. Nasty way of feeding but preferable to howling kids and smelly mothers. Went long way round to Shrewsbury. Had to nurse dirty baby, which smelt. Lorna [another teacher] doused it in scent to try and make it sweeter.

  Reached Shrewsbury at 5.10. Met warmly but think people in billets will be amazed when they find dirty dock women to be their guests. Buses and excellent organisation by billeting officers.

  Offered tea and a night’s rest by a resident. Went for tea and had a good wash. The people were kind. We had a lovely tea and discussed the situation. They had a lovely view across the Severn to Wenlock Edge, Clee Wrekin and so on. We went to the station to see about a train. Evacuation train in the station. On enquiring, we found one of our staff on board and held shouted conversation with him. It was lovely seeing him again.

  When the train had gone, we drank Rose’s lime juice in the bar. Talked, watched the stairs and paced the platform, smoking. A troop train came in. Ours was fearfully late. We chatted with the lads and generally enjoyed ourselves for a few minutes.

  Lorna and I had sandwiches, which we gave them. Then we had a fierce chase to get our train from another platform, where the three of us got a carriage with two men in it, a signalman on the railway and an Irishman from Scotland Road [in Liverpool], who had spent the day looking for his wife and children to get them reunited. An inefficient headmaster had run the party and wasted a weekend instead of collecting his party.

  Then Lorna and I tried to rest, but the men talked. At Chester, the signalman got out and in came two women with four yelling children and a henpecked little man. But aggressive female plonked next to me and almost sat on me. They criticised the scheme because (a) they had no one to cook for them and (b) they had no one to mind the children. In the end, Lorna and I parked in the corridor and let the babies howl. The little Irishman joined us because he said folks had to put up and they in the carriage from the slums were just lazy sluts who let anyone drag up their kids.

  It was a lovely night. There were many soldiers on our train – reporting to barracks, I suppose. At Woodside [the Birkenhead ferry terminal], we made tracks for the 11.45 ferry. Up on the top deck, the night was perfect – the shimmering river, black buildings and a few dim shapes of ships with navigation lights and the moon bathed it all in silver.

  We caught trams to different parts of the blacked-out city bathed in moonlight. How I love clear, unsullied moonlight. It made me think of my childhood before there were electric street lights in our village. I had to walk the last quarter-mile home. Then at 12.45, I reached the house and had a small supper and went to bed at 1.30. I was soon asleep after a wearying day. My clothes lay on the floor and I did not unpack my rucksack.

  THE CORNET PLAYER

  Ken Hone (1922–2019) was a seventeen-year-old, living with his family in Morriston, near Swansea, the eldest of four siblings. Since the age of eight, he had been playing the cornet in a local Salvation Army band every Sunday.

  The band was a big part of my life. That day, we were playing at the 11–12am morning service as usual when the person in charge told us what was happening. We were all seated in a semi-circle facing the stage. We all looked across at each other, we didn’t say much. I was one of the youngest there, but eventually, five of us in the band would go into the Forces.

  My father was in the First World War as an eighteen-year-old. He’d come through major battles in France, just twenty-two when I was born.

  At that moment, you knew your life was going to change but what would happen next was the big question. At the time, I had a good job, working as an insurance agent, but I’d always wanted to go into the RAF.

  We just carried on as usual – went home to lunch, came back to the Sunday School in the afternoon. All the young people were there as usual, but in the evening, it was packed – the town was agog that war had started. Of course, everyone went to church then. There were thirteen places of worship in our town, all of them packed that night.

  All my brothers were younger than me, the youngest, aged eight, was Alan. The news didn’t register with them at all. But my father had been in the trenches, he didn’t have any great love for Germany in the first place. My mother wasn’t a crying person – she was a Londoner, a tough n
ut.

  We’d moved into a brand-new council house in 1927, a fantastic community, forty kids in those eighteen houses and everyone pals – a great place to be in. We had three bedrooms, a small lounge and kitchen, bathroom and toilet, a modern house. We got a radio in 1936, but no phone. There’d been a lot of unemployment in our area but just before the war, things started to buck up in the steel and tin-plate works, a lot of work for that time and a big move from unemployment. We didn’t realise it at the time but the government knew more about the potential for war than we did.

  At the end of that day, I just kept wondering what will happen. We had no concept of the changes ahead, but a lot of people I knew had already joined the Territorial Army – after all, it was a means of getting a few pennies. Mostly these men were in the South Wales Borderers, that was the regiment. A lot of them wound up in Dunkirk – my generation was heading for the Forces and that was it.

  Sure enough, life didn’t change for us straight away, no air-raid alarm – the first air raid in our area was in 1941 and the first bomb in Swansea was in February 1941 and it was blitzed for three days, 230 people killed – the bombs weren’t supposed to get that far.

  That day, in our house, the only person that felt badly was my dad. The chances were he could have been called up again but he wound up as a leading fireman in the Fire Brigade. The only time I ever saw him upset was in Swansea during the Blitz. He said he could not believe what had happened after what he had been through as a young man.

  Two of us from the band signed up to join the Forces in 1940. I was not conscripted, I volunteered to sign up for the RAF – five minutes to join and six years to get out! I was a despatch rider for the Home Guard before I joined up, delivering messages in the middle of the night.