Miracles on the Water

On September 17, 1940, the SS City of Benares was sailing in the North Atlantic with more than four hundred people on board, including ninety children on their way to Canada to escape the blitz. They were considered lucky – leaving WWII behind and heading for peace, quiet and security…At a little after ten o’clock that night, a German submarine torpedoed the Benares. The ship sank in half an hour, in a gale that sent several of her lifeboats pitching to the cold sea. The passengers were more than six hundred miles from land, three hundred miles from the nearest rescue vessel; none of them had a reasonable hope of survival. But in the wake of tragedy and horror, the City of Benares would also prove herself a mother of miracles. Exceptional feats of courage and endurance took shape in the hours and days that followed the attack, the children in particular exhibiting what one naval officer later called ‘courage beyond praise’. Based on firsthand accounts from the child survivors and other passengers, including the author’s great-uncle, “Miracles on the Water” is a vivid retelling of one of the greatest hidden wartime dramas.