Evacuation

Overseas Evacuation

There had been other evacuations at the beginning of the war, but with the evacuation of Dunkirk, by the end of May 1940 the first spontaneous offers to take British children began to pour in from Canada and within a few days similar offers came from Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and the United States. On the 7th June the British Government set up a committee to consider these offers and on the day that France fell the 'War Cabinet' decided to set up the Children's Overseas Reception Board. By the 4th July, when the public had to be told that no further requests could be handled, 211 000 applications for evacuation overseas of children aged between five and sixteen had been received.

Even in the beginning the Board found it difficult to secure enough accommodation on British passenger-carrying ships and when on 10th July the 'War Cabinet' decided it was impossible to take warships off anti-invasion duties to provide convoy escorts the official scheme for sending children overseas was held in abeyance. Exit permits for children being sent privately were still granted so long as parents chose to accept the risks involved.

On September 17, 1940 a U-boat torpedoed the evacuation ship "City of Benares", with the loss of 256 lives including 77 out of 90 child evacuees. This brought an abrupt end to the official scheme.

The Children's Overseas Reception Board had safely evacuated 2 664 children, 1 532 to Canada, 576 to Australia, 353 to South Africa and 203 to New Zealand. Precise statistics are not available, but it is believed that another 11 000 children went by private arrangement, over 6 000 to Canada and the remainder to the United States.

The following newspaper report of 23 September on the sinking of the "City of Benares" uses emotive language and suggests a slightly higher death toll.