What Happened to the Bech Family?

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

Not all the passengers aboard the SS City of Benares were part of the CORB program. A few private fee-paying passengers booked passage on board for various reasons. Some were VIPs on government business, others were continuing their flight from Nazi-occupied Europe. A few were mothers taking their children to North America and leaving their husbands behind to continue their contributions to the war effort.

Among the mothers was Marguerite Bech, along with her three children: Barbara, 14, Sonia, 11, and Derek, 9. Marguerite had vivid memories of Zeppelin raids during WWI and had become more and more terrified as air raids began in their small town of Bognor. As overhead dogfights took place on the Sussex coast where they lived and bombers crashed on the beach, Marguerite made the decision to take the children to Canada, where they could spend the remainder of the war with old family connections.

The Adelphi Hotel

The first leg of their journey on September 11, 1940, took them to Liverpool’s premier hotel, the luxurious Adelphi, where the children were impressed with a whole suite just for them and an ensuite bathroom—something they hadn’t seen before. They gladly settled into their beds, only to be disturbed by a knock on the door. The air-raid siren had sounded, and they were to evacuate to the basement—the former Turkish baths, or hammam. So, they packed up and spent the night on wooden benches surrounded by mosaic tiles, the crashing and banging of bombs dropping around them. Near morning, they were allowed back to their room, where they tried to grab a couple of hours of sleep before having to leave for the docks. Sonia, 11, admitted to a sinking feeling as they boarded the Benares, but in the rush and excitement around her, she quickly forgot her misgivings.

Although housed at the opposite end of the steamship from the CORB children, the Bechs were equally as impressed with the posh liner and the abundance of food onboard. They quickly made friends among the other first-class private passengers, barely aware that so many children were on board.

Marguerite made sure her children took the daily lifeboat drills seriously, wore their life jackets at all times, and kept an emergency bag packed and ready to grab in the event of an emergency. Barbara Bech later wondered whether the drills left the children with a false sense of security. Sure, they knew what to do if the alarms sounded. But they never did the drills at night or during a storm, and they never lowered the boats. “Nobody would have dreamt of discussing not getting to Canada,” she said. “We were on our way and that was it.”

When the ship was torpedoed on the night of September 17 in the middle of a storm, they felt ill-prepared indeed. They dressed and gathered at their muster station, where they awaited further instructions that did not come. Finally, a crew member burst in, shocked to find the room still full of people. “Get to your lifeboats because the ship’s going down!” he hollered. The Bech family clambered up to the lifeboat deck, but the boats had all been lowered to the water. Barbara volunteered to go down on the ropes. She’d learned to climb up and down ropes in gym class, but didn’t realize her stiff, lace-up shoes would not grip the rope. Hand over hand, she managed to lower herself to the boat below, already filled with passengers. Soon, her boat drifted away from the sinking ship without her family.

Marguerite, Sonia, and Derek ended up on a rickety raft to which they spent several hours clinging by their fingernails. At daybreak, another lifeboat picked them up. Not until they were rescued by the HMS Hurricane around six p.m. on September 18 did they learn that Barbara had survived and were reunited with her. From Scotland, the family caught a train to their home in Bognor Regis where they remained. Only Sonia eventually made it to Canada, where she taught school for three years before returning to England.

Their story can be read in more detail in Miracles on the Water: The Heroic Survivors of a World War II U-Boat Attack, by Tom Nagorski.

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 Beth?

Like many British children, 14-year-old Beth Cummings was eager to be a participant in the CORB program and go to Canada to escape the war. She had already been evacuated the year before, to Chester—only 17 miles from her Liverpool home. While she and her friend Thelma were fortunate to stay in a welcoming home, not all the children were as lucky. Hosts were expected to take in children whether they wanted to or not, for eight shillings a week. Since the threats of war had not really happened yet, students began returning home on weekends and then many simply stayed home until the scheme fizzled out.

By the summer of 1940, however, bombs were dropping and children and parents alike could see the value of moving kids to safety. Beth was delighted to learn she’d been accepted to go to Canada and excitedly boarded the SS City of Benares on September 12 with her new friends—among them her new bestie, Bess Walder, 15. Beth and Bess quickly became inseparable. They hoped and prayed they’d be placed in the same home—or at least the same community—once they reached Canada. 

Alas, that was not the end result of their voyage. Only a week later, Beth would be telling her amazing story to a newspaper reporter from her hospital bed:

“On our fifth day at sea, the seventeenth, the weather turned for the worse and we all spent that day in our cabins, most of us seasick. Just after ten pm, we heard two explosions. We heard someone yelling that the ship had been torpedoed. I rushed out of my cabin into the corridor and headed for our muster point. I met up with my new friend, Bess. Bess had to fight her way out of her cabin because a cupboard had fallen against the door. We rushed to the lifeboat deck to find chaos and panic, and no sign of Bess’s brother, Louis. We were guided to lifeboat Number Five, which launched at a terrifying angle. The sea was so turbulent, and we all spilled out.”

What followed was the most grueling 18 hours Beth would ever experience.

“Bess and I managed to swim to our waterlogged lifeboat and hang on as best we could. Eventually, the boat tipped upside down and we grasped the rope that ran along the spine. Several others hung on with us. Bess hung on the opposite side of me, so we could see only each others’ hands until a wave carried us up, then down again. On the way down, we could glimpse each others’ faces for a second. Then our bodies would slam against the boat and the whole thing started over again. At one point, I lost my grip and slipped off but I was able to grab the rope again.” 

Last month, I told about how the girls were eventually rescued and returned home by the HMS Hurricane. Beth spent three weeks in the hospital, recovering from badly frostbitten and infected feet. At her mother’s encouragement, she used the time to write down everything about the ordeal. As a result, she retained clear and sharp details.

Although they never made it to Canada, both girls survived World War II and remained friends for life. They even became sisters-in-law when Bess met and married Beth’s brother, Geoff Cummings, in 1947. Bess went on to organize several reunions of the Benares survivors in the years that followed.

“What I think helped me and Beth to survive as we did was that we were doing it together.”  (Bess Walder, quoted in Children of the Doomed Voyage, Janet Menzies, 2005)

What Happened to Bess?

This series of blog posts will cover some of the stories not covered in my new book, Even If I Perish.

In 1940, numerous upper-class women and children had already fled from war-torn England to Canada and the United States, but many who wished to leave could not afford to. The Children’s Overseas Reception Board (CORB) was formed and tasked with running the scheme, and 211,000 children applied. Among them were 15-year old Bess Walder and her 10-year-old brother, Louis, from Kentish Town in northwest London.

Every day, Bess watched for the postman from the top of her family’s house. With so many bombed-out buildings in her line of sight, it was easy to see him on his route, and she made a deal with him. “I’ll be watching every day,” she said. “If you have an envelope addressed to my parents and it says, On His Majesty’s Service, will you wave it at me as you come down the street?”

Although the friendly man called her naughty and told her he couldn’t do that, one morning in late summer, he did. As he picked his way through the bomb-damaged pavement, he waved a large brown manila envelope. Bess and Louis tore down the stairs and out into the street. Knowing better than to open the envelope, they took it to their mother, who tucked it into her apron and continued with breakfast preparations.

When she finally relented to her children’s impatient begging, she scanned the letter and told them they’d been accepted. They were going to Canada. The pair exploded into cheers of “Hooray,” not once considering how their reaction might pain their mother’s heart. For them, it seemed like one big happy adventure.

Bess and Louis didn’t have long to wait. By September 9, children from all over England were headed for Liverpool where they would gather and from where they’d embark. On September 12, 90 “seavacuees” between the ages of five and 15 and ten adult escorts found themselves all in the same boat: the SS City of Benares, a luxury liner. The children reveled in the sumptuous surroundings, first-class accommodation, and food more varied and abundant than most had ever experienced. Bess quickly made friends with a girl named Beth, from Liverpool.

Tragedy Strikes

After the children had gone to bed on September 17, a torpedo from a German U-boat found its target and breached the hull of the City of Benares. The ship sank within 30 minutes. Beth and Bess found themselves in the same lifeboat, which quickly capsized in the horrendous storm. Soaking wet and freezing cold, the girls and a handful of other passengers managed to clasp their hands together across the overturned boat’s keel. The two girls hung onto each other and encouraged each other through the longest night of their lives. Each time a wave lifted the lifeboat to its crest, they caught a glimpse of the other’s face, then prepared for the slam their bodies would receive against the boat’s side when the wave came down again. Over and over, the girls fought the temptation to simply let go and surrender their bodies to the sea.

When morning finally came, they discovered to their horror that only one other passenger remained hanging from the boat, and he appeared to be passed out or deceased. To their great disappointment, no rescue ship was in sight. The girls continued to encourage each other. “I’m all right, Bess, are you all right?”

“Yes, I’m all right. Are you all right, Beth?” Bess’s biggest concern was for her brother, Louis. She had no idea which lifeboat he’d gotten into, if any. Was he dead or alive?

All through that day, the girls hung on, their hands numb as they curled around the ropes of the boat’s spine. They promised each other they’d hang on, no matter what. Daylight was beginning to fade again when they spotted their rescuers. The HMS Hurricane had been dispatched to the location of the sunken ship. When sailors spotted the overturned boat, they rowed to it in a smaller boat. One of the sailors climbed onto the lifeboat’s keel. The girls’ hands were so tightly clenched that the rope had to be cut to release their hands. As much as they wanted to let go, they could not. The sailor rescued Bess first. Once she was in the boat, he went back for Beth.

With a broken leg, many lacerations, and still worried about Louis, Bess had trouble resting in her bed onboard the rescue ship. When a sailor walked into sickbay with a surprise—Louis, alive and well—she felt she could endure anything.

Beth and Bess remained best friends and eventually became related through marriage. I’ll tell Beth’s side of the story next time.

Even If

Are you the type of person who chooses a theme word or phrase for the year? Something you can use to anchor yourself, to aim for, to help find meaning in life’s ups and downs? I’ve tried this a few times but by spring, I’ve usually forgotten it. This year, when I wasn’t particularly looking for one, a phrase chose me. It grabbed at my heartstrings when a certain song came on CHVN radio one day.

For this to make sense to you, I need to back up a bit.

I’m currently writing a two-book fiction series called the “Even If” series (although each book would stand alone).

Book One, Even If We Cry, will release this November from Mountain Brook Ink. It’s about the British children who evacuated to Canada during World War II and some of the things they, their parents in England, and their host families here went through. I’m currently working on edits.

Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=14805503

Book Two, Even If I Perish, releases in the fall of 2025. I’m about one-third through the first draft and up to my eyeballs in research. It’s based on the true story of a little-known heroine, Mary Cornish. Mary was one of the few survivors of the ship, The City of Benares, sunk by a German torpedo while carrying 90 children on one of these evacuation voyages. Mary survived eight days as the only female in a lifeboat meant for 24 people but packed with 46. Six of those people were young boys whom Mary was determined to keep alive at any cost.

My publishing contract includes the possibility of two more books in the series. You can see why the words, “even if,” have been jumping out every time I hear or see them.

Like you, I’ve known my share of faith-shaking hard times. Maybe I’m simply forgetful, but it truly seems as though 90 percent of those faith shakers have occurred in the last five years. You too? Some family stuff, some career stuff, some world-at-large stuff.

So I shouldn’t have been surprised when, driving down the street one day, the words of this song from Rend Collective caught my attention:

“I’ll find a way to praise You from the bottom of my broken heart
’Cause I think I’d rather strike a match than curse the dark…”

Can you relate? The singer goes on to say he’d rather take a chance on hope than fall apart. Is falling apart the only alternative? Surrendering to the dark? He decides no. That’s when the resounding chorus breaks in, with the repeating phrase which so perfectly applies to drifters in a lifeboat on a cold and raging sea in the middle of the night … and which nailed it for me:
“Even if my daylight never dawns
Even if my breakthrough never comes
Even if I’ll fight to bring You praise
Even if my dreams fall to the ground
Even if I’m lost, I know I’m found
… my heart will somehow say, ‘Hallelujah’ anyway.”

Faith does frequently feel like a big gamble, doesn’t it? Some people wonder why, if it’s really true, do we believers need to constantly convince and remind each other and ourselves, even if current evidence isn’t supporting our beliefs.

It’s a valid question. The only answer I can offer is the Bible’s definition of faith: the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen. (See Hebrews 11.)

Many thanks to songwriters Chris Llewellyn, Matt Maher, and Gareth Gilkeson for giving us this wonderfully personal song, and giving me my phrase for the year. You can hear the whole song HERE.

Do You Remember "Front Page Challenge?"

I remember my parents devotedly tuning in to CBC television on Monday nights to see who that week’s mystery challengers might be on Front Page Challenge and whether the panel would guess before their timer went off. Would Betty Kennedy be the successful panelist with the correct answer, as she often was? Would moderator Fred Davis need to intercept or intervene? Would Pierre Berton deviate from his bow tie? Would Gordon Sinclair say something crude and offensive like he almost always did? (My dad couldn’t stand the guy and, judging by the mail received by the show’s producers, Dad wasn’t alone. Sinclair’s insensitive antics were all part of the charm that kept viewers tuning in.)

Front Page Challenge premiered in 1957 and ran for 38 years, despite many predictions to the contrary. It began as a six-week summer fill-in show, created by John Aylesworth. The game’s premise was brilliant. Producers chose national or international stories that had appeared on the front page of a major newspaper. A panel of Canadian journalists (three regulars and one guest) would have a limited time to identify the story by asking yes-or-no questions of a mystery guest. When they succeeded, or when the timer buzzed, they had an additional amount of time to interview the guest, asking questions they hoped viewers would want to ask. Each show covered at least two stories unless the guest was famous enough to be deemed deserving of a whole show.

In its early days, when CBC still enjoyed an impressive budget, famous challengers were flown in from all over the world, including Eleanor Roosevelt, Indira Gandhi, Harold Wilson, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Martin Luther King Jr., and Menachem Begin. Canadian headliners who came on as challengers included all the living prime ministers during those years, sports stars like Gordie Howe, and entertainment icons like Anne Murray and Gordon Lightfoot. In those early black-and-white videos, the panelists and guests are often seen with a cigarette in hand or smoke rising from the ashtrays on their desk. How sophisticated.

Why on earth am I researching this obsolete program? Well, the novel I’m currently writing, Even If I Perish, is about the sinking of the SS City of Benares—one of the ships that transported British children to Canada during World War II. In addition to its paying passengers and crew, the City of Benares carried 90 children, along with their escorts. On September 17, 1940, the ship was struck by a  German torpedo. Only 13 children survived. I’m certain the story made the front pages.

I’m creating a fictional story involving one or more of the survivors. I’ve found no evidence that Front Page Challenge covered this story (even though they did sometimes choose headlines going further into the past), but it certainly would have been a good one—particularly if they brought one of the survivors onto the show as their challenger. If I decide to make this happen in my novel, the challenger will be Mary Cornish, the woman who survived eight days as the only female in Lifeboat Number 12, caring for six boys in a boat packed with more than twice the people it was built for. I can already imagine ol’ Gordon Sinclair asking Mary how much she got paid for escorting the children. In real life, Mary never made it to Canada. She did, however, receive the Medal of the Order of the British Empire and she appeared on a British television program in 1956. So it’s not that big of a stretch to think she might have been recruited for our Canadian show. If only they’d thought of it.

You can watch clips from Front Page Challenge on YouTube, including the time Stompin’ Tom Connors stumped the panel, and one from 1984 featuring Mary Simon, decades before she became Canada’s Governor General.

Do you recall a favorite Front Page Challenge story?

Pierre Burton, Fred Davis, Betty Kennedy, Gordon Sinclair (photo from Facebook)