Remembering the tragedy which claimed 11 young lives
A memorial to commemorate an appalling wartime event which claimed the lives of 11 Wearside children has been held in Fulwell.
On Tuesday, September 17, 1940, the SS City of Banares set sail from Liverpool to Canada.
On board were 90 evacuees, children who were escaping the bombing of Britain.
The vessel had sailed around 600 miles westwards across the Atlantic Ocean, when it was torpedoed and sunk by a German U-boat, claiming the lives of 260 of the 407 on board.
Only 13 of the 90 evacuees survived.
The 11 Sunderland children who never came home were aged between 13 and five.
Usually the memorial is staged every five years, but the most recent one was in 2015.
The 2020 service was postponed due to Covid, but took place at All Saints Church in Fulwell at 10.45am on Saturday. Among those to attend in 2015 was Billy Short, who survived the disaster aged nine.
His younger brother Peter was not so fortunate and lost his life aged just five.
It took eight days to rescue Billy and the others in his lifeboat.
A Sunderland Flying Boat was returning from escort duty when the crew spotted them.
Billy passed away in
2016, but told Echo in 2005: “I was asleep when the torpedo hit. The top bunk came down on me and I had to crawl out from underneath it.”
After the war the captain of the U-boat was tried for a war crime, but acquitted.
He said he had no way of knowing who was on board and never apologised.
A brass plaque honouring the 11 children is kept by the Sunderland Volunteer Life Brigade (SVLB) in Roker.
SVLB historian, Kate Gill, said: “Sunderland Volunteer Life Brigade are proud to be the custodians of the plaque which commemorates the Sunderland children who died.
“We hope that this loss of young life will be remembered as part of Sunderland's wartime history.”
There was also a small exhibition in the Brigade Watch House where the plaque is displayed, at Pier View, Roker on Saturday and Sunday.