Evacuation

DAILY MIRROR, Monday, Sept. 23, 1940.

EIGHTY-THREE out of a party of ninety children being taken to Canada died along with 211 other passengers and crew when a British liner was torpedoed and sunk by the Huns in an Atlantic storm.
Seven out of nine adults who were escorting the children were also drowned.
A U-boat committed this crime against civilians when the liner was 600 miles from land. The ship sank in twenty minutes.

Huge seas swamped some of the boats which the crew managed to launch. In other boats people sat waist deep in water and died of exposure.

Many of the children were killed when the torpedo struck the ship.

The disaster was revealed last night when it was stated officially that the number of missing was 294.

There were 406 people in the ship, a crew of 215 and 191 passengers. Including the ninety children, who were being evacuated by the Overseas Reception Board.

The 112 survivors included thirty-six Lascars.
Two of the children who were drowned were making their second attempt to reach safety in Canada.
They were rescued from the first evacuee liner to be torpedoed - the Volendam. They were still eager to cross the Atlantic and were embarked on the next available ship. This time they did not escape the Huns.

Apart from those in the party of ninety evacuee children a number of children travelling privately with their parents are among the missing.