Children's Overseas Reception Board (CORB) group bound for New Zealand, 1940
The Children's Overseas Reception Board (CORB) was a British government sponsored organisation.[1] The CORB evacuated 2,664 British children from England, so that they would escape the imminent threat of German invasion and the risk of enemy bombing in World War II. This was during a critical period in British history, between July and September 1940, when the Battle of Britain was raging, and German invasion forces were being amassed across the English Channel.
The children were sent mainly to the four Dominion countries, Canada 1,532 (in nine parties), Australia 577 (three parties), New Zealand 202 (two parties), and South Africa 353 (two parties), and 838 to the USA under the United States Committee for the Care of European Children programme. In the first few months over 211,000 children[2] were registered with the scheme. A further 24,000 children had been approved for sailing in that time and over 1,000 volunteer escorts, including doctors and nurses, enrolled. It was planned as a temporary exile for the children, to return home to their families when conditions permitted.
Historical background
Even before the Second World War began in September 1939, the British government had prepared for the evacuation of over a million vulnerable people, mainly children, from the towns and cities to safe areas in the countryside away from the risk of enemy bombing. It was widely believed that up to four million people could be killed by enemy attacks on British towns and cities.
When war did eventually break out, the question of sending British children to Commonwealth countries was brought up in Parliament. It was initially rejected on the grounds of creating panic or spreading defeatism. Instead the government decided that the evacuation to rural areas of Britain should continue as it was felt that this was adequate.
Nonetheless, it is estimated that, by the end of 1941, some 14,000 British children[3] had been evacuated overseas by private arrangement, over 6,000 to Canada and some 5,000 to the United States.[2]
They went either to relatives or friends or left as part of private schemes, run by businesses such as Hoover and Kodak, who would evacuate the children of their British employees. At the beginning of the War America was neutral, and had strict immigration laws. This presented a serious obstacle to the U.S.A. accepting any significant number of British refugees.
Initially these British evacuations to America were a private undertaking and not a British Government sponsored or aided evacuation, but this changed later (see below).
In a related American activity, the quasi-governmental "U.S. Committee for the Care of European Children" (USCOM)[4] was established in June 1940. Its purpose, was to try to save mainly Jewish refugee children who came from Continental Europe (as contrasted with those of the CORB from Great Britain), and to evacuate them to America. Images of German bombing raids and European refugees had a major impact on American opinion and this increased when the Germans began bombing the UK. America was neutral until December 1941, which meant that USCOM was still able to operate in Vichy France after May 1940. On the ground in France, the Quaker American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) (the Quakers - see History of the Quakers) worked with the OSE to select children. In a complicated process, several hundred children made it to the United States, though the rescue of many more was ultimately thwarted by the Nazi occupation of southern France. The organisation called the United States Committee for the Care of European Children was strongly supported by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt (She was the honorary president). This program helped evacuate more than 838 children to America. Other organisations and individuals also worked to save Jewish children and send them to the United States.
In 1941 Geoffrey Shakespeare, British Under-Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs, announced that a total of 838 children had been sent under the auspices of the United States Committee for the Care of European Children, with the collaboration of the Children’s Overseas Reception Board.[5]
Organisation of the scheme
Prelude to CORB
The first British civilian casualties of World War II occurred when a German U-boat sank the Cunard passenger liner SS Athenia (1922) chartered from the Anchor Donaldson Line on September 3, 1939, the day Britain entered the War. It was sunk without warning west of Scotland by U-30, which had been shadowing the liner and attacked when it received news that Britain and Germany were at war. ‘Athenia’ was carrying evacuees from Liverpool to Canada. There was a total of 1,103 passengers in addition to the crew. Survivors were rescued by the British destroyers HMS Electra, Escort and Fame as well as merchantmen ‘City of Flint’ and ‘Southern Cross’ and the Norwegian tanker ‘Knute Nelson’. The survivors were brought to Galway in neutral Ireland. 118 passengers were killed, including 28 Americans.
With the fall of France imminent, the children's evacuation scheme was again presented in the British Parliament, and this time approved.
Use of Thomas Cook's expertise
In Churchill’s newly formed War Cabinet on 17 June, Under-Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs Geoffrey Shakespeare was tasked with implementing the evacuation programme.[6] The same day, negotiations opened with the travel agency Thomas Cook & Son, for the new department to be housed in their London Head Office at 45 Berkeley Street.[7] The British Government would meet the cost of the voyages with contributions taken from parents on a sliding scale, involving a means test.[2]
Although the British Government was now involved, and this scheme was sanctioned by the Cabinet, Churchill and some others were not personally keen on the idea. Queen Elizabeth, wife of King George VI, had made her views clear at the outbreak of war. There was some suggestion that the Queen and her daughters should be evacuated to North America or Canada. To this the Queen replied in a letter, written on Windsor Castle headed notepaper: “The children will not leave unless I do. I shall not leave unless their father does, and the king will not leave the country in any circumstances, whatever.” [8] Throughout the Second World War the Queen and her children shared the dangers and difficulties of the rest of the nation.
The new organisation and staff were quickly assembled and the scheme launched. Applications for children would be made through schools throughout the country. They would travel alone and be accompanied by selected teachers or escorts at a ratio of one to every 15 children, in addition to nurses and doctors. They would travel to the port of embarkation and be accommodated in a hostel, where final medical checks were made. In order to embark rapidly; the usual formalities were dispensed with, there would be no passports.[6] Each child was given a luggage label with its C.O.R.B. number and as each child embarked they were given an identity disc, also with its C.O.R.B. number.
At its height the C.O.R.B. employed some 620 staff.
Sinkings of Volendam and City of Benares
Royal Navy destroyer HMSAnthony rescues survivors from a lifeboat from City of Benares which had been adrift for nine days after the ship was sunk on 17 September 1940.
Within two weeks of each other, two ships carrying CORB children ‘Sea Evacuees’ as they were known, were torpedoed by German U-boats.
Volendam
First was Holland America Line's Volendam, whose passengers included 320 children bound for Halifax and New York. She left Liverpool on 29 August with convoy OB 205, consisting of 32 other ships, and including RMSRangitata, carrying 113 evacuee children bound for Wellington, New[9] Zealand. On 30 August 1940 at about 11.00pm, the convoy was attacked by U-60, firing two torpedoes that hit No. 1 hold and damaged and caused flooding in No.2 hold. The passengers and crew abandoned ship and were rescued by other ships in the convoy, including the British cargo ship Bassethound, tanker Valldemosa and Norwegian Olaf Fostenes, and the British destroyer HMSSabre. They were taken to Greenock and other west coast ports in Scotland. All 321 children were rescued. The only casualty was the ship's purser, who was drowned. Volendam did not sink, and was subsequently taken in tow to Scotland for repairs. When she was docked, an unexploded second torpedo was found embedded in her bow. Had it exploded, she would have probably sunk.
All but two of the 321 children returned to their families after the attack on Volendam. Twelve-year old Patricia Allen of Liverpool and ten-year old Michael Brooker of Kent returned to find that their homes had been badly damaged in the Luftwaffe raids and their families were living in shelters. The two were labelled as "priority candidates" and sent back to the program to await the next available voyage.[10]
City of Benares
The second incident, which led to the cancellation of the program, occurred 17 September 1940, when Ellerman Lines' City of Benares, carrying 90 children bound for homes in Canada, was sunk by torpedoed. Patricia Allen and Michael Brooker were aboard.[11] She had left Liverpool on 13 September for Quebec and Montreal. She was in convoy OB 213 with 19 other ships and was 253 miles west-southwest of Rockall, with the Atlantic weather getting worse and the ship sailing slowly. City of Benares was the flagship of the Convoy Commodore, and was leading the convoy. At about 10:00 PM U-48 attacked her with two torpedoes, but they missed. A second torpedo attack at 10:01 hit the ship in the port stern at 119 seconds later, at 10:03 PM. In the time it took the Benares to sink, 31 minutes, dozens were dead, many of them children. The first lifeboat to be lowered, Lifeboat 8 on the port-side, had been struck by a wave, tipping all of its occupants, more than thirty people (including 18 CORB girls and 2 escorts), into the frigid sea. Everyone in that lifeboat died. Three lifeboats had capsized, spilling occupants into the water, and leaving them in a desperate fight to climb onto the lifeboats upturned hulls. Only two lifeboats were lowered correctly, one was Lifeboat 4, with 33 occupants, of whom only one was a child (this was one of the private passenger children, her family was also saved), and the other was Lifeboat 12, with 46 occupants, of whom 6 were CORB boys. Hundreds more people died during the night, and a fourth lifeboat was capsized. By the time the British destroyer HMSHurricane got to the scene, there were only 105 survivors, thirteen of whom were children (7 CORB children and 6 private passenger children) and 19 of whom were women. Only 2 escorts had been rescued, both women. They were landed at Greenock. 46 survivors were left adrift in a lifeboat for eight days (including 2 escorts – one of whom was a woman, Mary Cornish – and 6 CORB boys), one Indian deckhand dying, until being picked up by HMSAnthony and also landed at Greenock (two more Indian crew members died there). The ship's master, three convoy staff members (including the commodore), 120 crew members and 134 passengers were lost. 77 of the 90 CORB children died in the sinking, including Patricia Allen and Michael Brooker.[12] In all, 258 people out of 406 on board had died, and 148 had survived. Of 100 children on board (this figure includes the 10 private passenger children) 81 had died, 19 had survived. This event brought the evacuation programme to a halt.[13]
Reactions
The sinking of Benares caused outrage when it was reported on 23 September 1940.[14] The British government protested that children should not have been innocent victims of war. The Americans called it a ‘dastardly act’. The Germans defended the U-boat attack, considering the ship a legitimate military target, and insisted that the British government was to blame for allowing children to travel on such ships in a war zone. The sinking was a public relations disaster for both the CORB programme and the Admiralty.[15] The British public seemed more enraged at the Admiralty than at the Germans.[2] The fact that the escorts were detached, Benares was at the head of the convoy, and the convoy was not taking any evasive action all featured prominently, though there was never an official enquiry.
End of the scheme
After the disaster of City of Benares, British public opinion opposed the continuation of overseas evacuation, fearing further tragedies. Winston Churchill had been opposed to the scheme, so the government announced the cancellation of the CORB program. However, private evacuation efforts continued into late 1941. By September 1940 the Royal Air Force had achieved mastery over the German Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain, and the threat of an imminent German invasion (Operation Sea Lion) had abated.[16]
Although the evacuation scheme had ceased in September 1940, CORB remained active. It was not disbanded, along with the advisory councils, until 1944, by which point the perceived German military threat had reduced.
The German captain of U-48, Kapitänleutnant Heinrich Bleichrodt survived the war, and was held and tried by the Allies on war crimes charges concerning the sinking of the City of Benares. He was accused of sinking the ship with the full knowledge that it had been transporting evacuees. He reaffirmed the German position that there was no way that he or the crew of the submarine could have known who was on board. It was upheld and he was acquitted. However, Bleichrodt refused to apologise to the survivors, despite several crew members of U-48, including the radio operator, expressing their shock and regret once the facts became known.
Ships employed
Liverpool was the principal port used for evacuation for the North Atlantic routes to Canada and America. Gourock and Greenock in Scotland were also used. Between 21 July and 20 September 1940, 16 voyages were made carrying 2,664 CORB children.[17] In addition there were also privately sponsored voyages. The programme itself was very limited in size; nineteen ships set sail with 3,127 children, the vast majority of whom made it to their temporary foster homes in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa.[18]
Ships Under the CORB Scheme Carrying British and Welsh Children
The following members were appointed[19] to the Advisory Council as announced in Parliament on 26 June 1940.They met at 45 Berkeley Street London W1, Thomas Cook & Sons, Head Office.
The Right Honourable Lord Snell (Chairman), C.B.E., LL.D. Miss Florence Horsbrugh, M.P., Parliamentary Secretary, Ministry of Health. Mr. James Chuter Ede, M.P., Parliamentary Secretary, Board of Education. Mr. J. Westwood, M.P., Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Scotland. Miss Ellen Wilkinson, M.P., Parliamentary Secretary, Ministry of Pensions. Mr. E. R. Appleton, Organizer of Empire Youth movements. Major Cyril Bavin, O.B.E., Y.M.C.A. Reverend John Bennett, Catholic Council of British Overseas Settlement. The Countess of Bessborough, Chairman of Council, Society for Overseas Settlement of British Women. Miss, Grace Browning, Girl Guide's Association. Mr. Laurence Cadbury, O.B.E., M.A., Chairman, Cadbury Brothers, Limited, an authority on school and welfare problems. Lieut.-Colonel Culshaw, Salvation Army. Miss Doggett, O.B.E., League of Empire. Miss Ellen Evans, Principal, The Glamorgan Training College: also appointed with special reference to Wales. Captain G. F. Gracey, Save the Children's Fund. Mr. Gordon Green, Fairbridge Farm School. Mr. W. A. F. Hepburn, O.B.E., M.C., LL.D., Director of Education for Ayrshire, also appointed with special reference to Scotland. Reverend S. W. Hughes, Free Church Council. Reverend Canon H. E. Hyde, Church of England Council for Empire Settlement. Miss M. F. Jobson, J.P., Member of Fife Education Authority and County Council; also appointed with special reference to Scotland. Miss E. A. Jones, M.A., Headmistresses' Association. Mr. P. J. Kirkpatrick, Dr. Barnardo's Homes (Thomas John Barnardo). Mr. Harold Legat, Boy Scouts' Association (The Scout Association). The Right Honourable Sir Ronald Lindsay, G.C.B., G.C.M.G., sometime His Majesty's Ambassador to Washington. Mr. W. A. Markham, M.A., Member of Executive National Children's Home and Orphanage. Mrs. Norman, Vice-Chairman, Women's Voluntary Services. Mrs. E. Parker, Ex-President, National Union of Teachers. Dr. Donald Paterson, M.D., F.R.C.P., Physician, Great Ormond Street Hospital. Miss Gladys Pott, C.B.E., ex-Chairman of Executive of Society for Overseas Settlement of British Women. Mr. Brendan Quin, 1820 Memorial Settlement. Sir William Reardon Smith, Baronet, an authority on shipping; also appointed with special reference to Wales. Miss Edith Thompson, C.B.E., Chairman of Executive, Society for the Overseas Settlement of British Women.
A Scottish Advisory Council for CORB was also appointed, which met at 27, St. Andrew's Square, Edinburgh 2.
The Right Honourable the Lord Provost of Glasgow, P. J. Dollan, Esq., (Chairman). Mr. Joseph Westwood, M.P., Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland. (also attended London HQ meetings) Mr. A. L. Fletcher, B.A., former Director of Education for the County of Midlothian. Miss Mary Tweedie, former Headmistress of the Edinburgh Ladies' College (The Mary Erskine School). Mrs. McNab Shaw, a member of the Ayr County Council. Miss Margaret Jobson, J.P., a member of the Fife County Council, and Fife Education Authority, (also attended London HQ meetings). Mr. W. A. F. Hepburn, O.B.E., M.C., LL.D., Director of Education for Ayrshire, (also attended London HQ meetings). A representative of the Quarrier's Homes, Bridge of Weir, who was appointed.
The People’s War: Britain 1939-45, (1969) Angus Calder, Jonathan Cape Ltd., London
The Home Front: Witness History, (1990) Stewart Ross, Hodder Wayland
Innocents Abroad: Story of British Child Evacuees in Australia, 1940–45, (1994) Edward Stokes, Allen & Unwin
The Absurd and the Brave: CORB, The True Account of the British Government's World War II Evacuation of Children Overseas, (1990) Michael Fethney, The Book Guild, Lewes
A History of the Twentieth Century, Vol. 2 1933-54, (1998) Martin Gilbert, William Morrow and Company, Inc. New York
Children of the Doomed Voyage, (2005) Janet Menzies, John Wiley & Sons (story of the tragedy of the SS City of Benares)
Thomas Cook, 150 Years of Popular Tourism, (1991) Piers Brendon, Secker & Warbug, London, pages 278-9
The Singing Ship: an odyssey of evacuee children, Meta Maclean, Angus and Robertson, Sydney. 1941, (MS Batory)
The evacuation of civilians in Britain during the Second World War was designed to defend individuals, especially children, from the risks associated with aerial bombing of cities by moving them to areas thought to be less at risk.
SS Arandora Star, originally SS Arandora, was a British passenger ship of the Blue Star Line. She was built in 1927 as an ocean liner and refrigerated cargo ship, converted in 1929 into a cruise ship and requisitioned as a troopship in the Second World War. At the end of June 1940 she was assigned the task of deporting interned Anglo-Italian and Anglo-German civilians as well as a small number of legitimate prisoners of war to Canada. On 2 July 1940 she was sunk by a German U-boat off the coast of Ireland with a large loss of life, 805 people.
CP Ships was a large Canadian shipping company established in the 19th century. From the late 1880s until after World War II, the company was Canada's largest operator of Atlantic and Pacific steamships. Many immigrants travelled on CP ships from Europe to Canada. In 1914 the sinking of the Canadian Pacific steamship RMS Empress of Ireland just before World War I became largest maritime disaster in Canadian history. The company provided Canadian Merchant Navy vessels in World Wars I and II. Twelve vessels were lost due to enemy action in World War II, including the RMS Empress of Britain, which was the largest ship ever sunk by a German U-boat.
City of Benares was a British steam turbine ocean liner, built for Ellerman Lines by Barclay, Curle & Co of Glasgow in 1936. During the Second World War, City of Benares was used as an evacuee ship to transport 90 children from Britain to Canada. German submarine U-48 sank her by torpedoes in September 1940 with the loss of 260 people out of a complement of 408, including the death of 77 of the evacuated children. The sinking caused such public outrage in Britain that it led to Winston Churchill cancelling the Children's Overseas Reception Board (CORB) plan to relocate British children abroad.
German submarine U-48 was a Type VIIB U-boat of Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine during World War II, and the most successful that was commissioned. During her two years of active service, U-48 sank 51 ships for a total of 299,477 GRT and 1,060 tons; she also damaged four more for a total of 27,877 GRT over twelve war patrols conducted during the opening stages of the Battle of the Atlantic.
SS City of Paris was a steam passenger ship launched in 1920 and completed in 1922 for the Ellerman Lines. She was requisitioned for service by the British government during the Second World War.
Heinrich Bleichrodt was a German U-boat commander during the Second World War. From October 1939 until retiring from front line service in December 1943, he was credited with sinking 25 ships for a total of 152,320 gross register tons (GRT). He was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves of Nazi Germany. Bleichrodt was tried and acquitted for war crimes in connection with the sinking of the SS City of Benares, which was carrying evacuated children. He earned the nickname "Ajax" during his time with the U-boats.
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The SS City of Benares, a British steam passenger ship, sank on 17 September 1940. The ship was en route to Montreal, Canada, then to Quebec City, and later to New York City. She was carrying 406 people—209 crew, 6 convoy representatives, and 191 passengers, of whom 100 were children ages 2 to 15. Most of the passengers were British, Australian, or Canadian, though twenty-three were from other countries, while most of the crew was Indian. The ship was discovered by a German submarine, and in the middle of the night she was torpedoed and sunk, killing nearly all on board.
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