Three brother evacuees to Canada

It was late in June 1940 when France fell to the Germans that my parents received a telegram from a great Uncle in Canada..just three words:"Send the Boys" The three of us (aged sixteen,fourteen and twelve travelled to Liverpool from the Isle of Wight by way of London where we saw the film Pinnochio. We sailed from Liverpool on the Duchess of Richmond together with the former cruise liner Arandora Star and were escorted around the tip of Ireland by the destroyer Wanderer. On July 2nd we heard a large explosion and realized that the Arandora Star had been torpedoed and we moved swiftly away from the sinking ship. It turned out later that the U Boat was captained by Gunther Prien, famous for earlier in the war penetrating the submarine nets at Scapa Flow and sinking the battleship Royal Oak, Little did we know that Prien only had one torpedo left and chose to use it on the Arandora Star which ironically was transporting German and Italian internees to Canada. Sadly Eight Hundred and Sixty people were killed while we proceeded safely to Montreal. I do not think my parents realized the potential danger of sending three sons out into the Atlantic at that time. Sixty Seven ships were sunk in June and forty three in July 1940, mostly just off the coast of Northern Ireland.

A few weeks later another ship loaded with children, the City of Benares was sunk and most of the children perished. It was then that Churchill said "No more children to Canada". Every July 2nd I say a little thankyou to Gunther Prien for aiming his last torpedo at the other ship.

For anyone wanting more information on the Battle of the Atlantic I thoroughly recommend checking out the web page http:// uboat.net which has details of every ship sunk by U boats during the Second World War. Submitted by Geoffrey Paterson from Hawaii ggp@hawaii.rr.com December 1, 2005

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