What Happened to John?

In this series, I'm sharing some of the stories not covered in my new novel, Even If I Perish.

John Baker was only seven years old when he boarded the SS City of Benares with his 13-year-old brother, Bobby, and 88 other British children. Together with their adult escorts, they would sail to Canada to avoid the bombings occurring almost nightly back home. They set sail on the evening of Friday, September 13, 1940, after two days and one night waiting in the Liverpool harbor for conditions to be safe.

Aboard the former luxury liner, John quickly earned the nickname The Lost Boy. “The thing was,” he explained in later years, “I found the ship a very confusing place. It was huge as far as I was concerned. I wanted to explore, as kids do, and the number of times I got lost was unbelievable.”

Fortunately for John, his brother Bobby had been instructed by their parents to look out for him. Bobby did so with such dedication that when the ship was torpedoed on the night of September 17, he made a life-altering decision.

John recalls being the first in his cabin to hear the alarm bells and wake up. The children had been told that drills can happen at any time, and he assumed it was a drill. “I had my blankets wrapped round me Navy-style in a sort of cocoon, so I was trying to kick my bedding clear,” John remembered years later. “I fought my way out of bed and ran around, waking everybody up. There were four of us in the cabin, and I woke my brother up and the boys in the other bunks.”

Alarm bells and chaos continued as the boys made their way out into the corridors and up onto the deck. Only then did John realize, despite knowing the correct procedures, that he’d forgotten his life jacket. 

So I said to Bobby, ‘I must go and get my life jacket,’ and off I went like a rocket. Fortunately, Bobby very sensibly grabbed hold of me and kept me close. He restrained me forcibly from going down there and getting lost again,” John said. “Instead, he gave me another life jacket. Now, whether he gave me his own life jacket in place of the one that I left behind, I do not know, and I shall never know. But he knew the drills, and it was drilled into us every time, to bring your life jacket and to put it on. So he put a lifejacket on me.”

After a horrendous ordeal wherein the boys’ lifeboat mislaunched, plunging them into the sea, they had to climb rope ladders back onto the ship. Their lifeboat was pulled up and loaded a second time. All of this was taking place during a vicious storm, with the crew and passengers scrambling for their lives, many screaming and dropping into the freezing waters of the North Atlantic. In the pandemonium, John lost track of Bobby.

Some 20 hours later, the HMS Hurricane rescued those remaining alive. Once names were collected, little John knew for sure his brother was not among the survivors, though his little heart was too young to process the truth. He returned home to his parents, the only survivor of the nine children from Southall, Middlesex, who’d been aboard. In a time when it was believed that not talking about such trauma was the healthiest directive, only in later years, when the survivors held reunions, did John allow himself to think or speak about the tragedy.

“Bobby gave a great gift to me,” he said in 2005, “and I shall forever be grateful. Because of that life jacket, he has given me 65 years of life that he didn’t have. So I’m grateful.”

Hope you can make it!

 

What happened to Michael?

St. Jude's church where Michael's father was vicar.

In 1940 England, a 23-year-old Theology student named Michael Rennie was preparing to follow his father’s footsteps and become a vicar. A keen sportsman and newly graduated from Keble College Oxford, Rennie was an ideal candidate to serve as a volunteer escort to a group of children evacuating by sea to Canada. Out of hundreds of applicants, Michael was accepted and placed in charge of 15 boys. Together with the other CORB children and escorts, they set sail on Friday, September 13, 1940, aboard the SS City of Benares.

Michael Rennie quickly became extremely popular with the children. Boys and girls alike admired his athletic prowess and his ability to organize games and make every moment on board fun. His boundless energy in leading games made him a favorite of the other escorts as well. He earned the respect of all. The future for this young man looked bright—for this voyage and beyond.

By September 17, the City of Benares had reached the “safe” zone—250 miles (402 km) west of the Hebrides. What officials had not factored in, however, was that the Nazis now occupied France. This expanded their reach of communications so that their U-boats could venture farther out. During the day, the Benares was spotted through a periscope by Heinrich Bleichrodt, captain of the German submarine U-48. That night, despite the rising storm, Bleichrodt fired a torpedo that penetrated the ship’s hull. It exploded, filling the ship with the acrid smell of explosives.

Captain Nicoll gave the order to abandon ship. Children, escorts and passengers started boarding their lifeboats, a process hampered by the storm and the loss of power. The ship sank quickly, its bow rising from the sea. As it disappeared into the rough Atlantic Ocean with its emergency lights still blazing, Michael Rennie knew he had to save as many people as possible. Over and over, he dove under the frigid water, assisting others into lifeboats while disregarding his own safety. Eventually, he succumbed to exhaustion and exposure.

After the ordeal, one young survivor, Louis Walder (brother to Bess) wrote a letter to Michael’s father in London. He’d been one of Michael’s boys and wanted the Rennies to know what a hero their son had been. He wrote:

Dear Reverend and Mrs. Rennie,

The first time I saw Mr. Rennie, your son, after the torpedoing of the ship at 10 p.m. on the Tuesday night, was when he was helping the children to their lifeboat, often at great risk to himself as the ship was badly damaged.

Then when he could do no more he got into my lifeboat and sat on a seat holding two small children in his arms.

Then the rope by which the lifeboat was being lowered jammed, and so he cut it through with his penknife so as to make it easier. Then whilst the boat was going the rest of the way down, it tilted and the occupants were catapulted into the stormy sea, your son included.

Here I lost sight of him until later on when I saw him on a raft. The lifeboat I was in managed to pick him and others up. After he’d been in the boat some time he saw a number of children in the water in danger of drowning, so he promptly dived in again and again to rescue them, which he did most successfully.

The other men warned him repeatedly not to do so as he’d grow exhausted, but he said, “There are still children in the water, and I must get them.” The other men did their best for the children already in the boat in helping them.

This naturally exhausted your son a great deal, but he continued encouraging the people with words of comfort.

Then the seas grew much rougher and the waves higher and higher and the boat got water-logged, the water reaching to my chest, about four feet deep. The water level rose much higher and we were seized with cramps and got very stiff. Still, Mr. Rennie persuaded us that help would come, and even told us what to do when help came.

Then at about six on the Wednesday evening, Mr. Rennie caught sight of a warship and tried to stand on his unsteady seat (which, as everybody said, was the act of a courageous man) in order to wave to attract the attention of the warship.

However, this was when the tragedy occurred. Owing to his repeated efforts to rescue the drowning children, Mr. Rennie’s condition was naturally more exhausted than the other men’s and owing to the great strain, your dear son collapsed, and fell, I think, dead into the water which filled the water-logged boat. The men in the boat tried with all their strength to lift him out of the water, but being themselves exhausted, and Mr. Rennie being dead-weight, it was impossible to do so. And so he died in helping others right to the end.

His last words were, “Hurrah! Here comes the destroyer. Thank God.”

A Czech and a German refugee sat near your son, and one of them said a prayer for your son in which the others joined.

I’m sorry I live so far away, as I expect you would like to talk to me about your son. I’m sure he was a very brave man.

Yours sincerely,

Louis Walder