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17 September 2019 marks the 79th anniversary of the sinking of child evacuee ship the City of Benares. She was sunk mid-Atlantic by a German u-boat with catastrophic loss of life, particularly amongst the young evacuees she was carrying. The Royal Navy rushed to rescue survivors but, after a dangerous dash through the night, arrived to find that many of those who had survived the torpedo had ...
The City of Benares, known as the 'Children's Ship', was carrying evacuee children fleeing Second World War Britain when it was torpedoed on 17 September 1940. To mark the 80th anniversary of the sinking we take a look at the incredible tale of one of the survivors. The City of Benares was carrying 100 children when she sank.
Sep 17, 2020 · The ship, carrying more than 400 passengers and crew, included a precious cargo of 90 evacuees under a scheme which would give them a chance of spending the rest of the war in safety with families ...
- 10 Starting
- 9 Gagging
- 8 Flogging
- 7 Flogging Around The Fleet
- 6 Cobbed and Firked
- 5 Child Punishment
- 4 Running The Gauntlet
- 3 Falling Asleep on Watch
- 2 Hanging from The Yardarm
- 1 Keelhauling
Many punishments were formal, as in ordered by the captain with a record kept in the ship’s log. The disciplinedelivered by the boatswain or bosun’s mate (a foreman of sorts) was an on-the-spot thing with no need of a written account. Thus, it could happen for any reason at any time. The bosun’s mate always carried a small weapon to beat the unfort...
This punishment was used when a sailor became a little too lippy or committed other minor offenses. To teach him a lesson, his hands and legs were bound. An iron bolt would be put in his mouth, tied in place from behind his head, and left for whatever time the officer felt fit the crime. If you’ve ever seen the film Pulp Fiction, think of the pool-...
Although we have all heard of flogging, you may not be aware of just how brutal it could be. This was one of the most common punishments in the Royal Navy. Almost any crime could end with this torture. The condemned would be whipped with a cat-o’-nine-tails, a whip with nine (sometimes) waxed knotted tails. When a sailor was to be flogged, he would...
This was much the same as a normal flogging with the cat-o’-nine-tails, but it was more of a show for others to witness—usually when there was a collection of ships nearby in a harbor. The crew member would be tied to a small boat’s mast and lashed by the bosun’s mate. The boat was then taken to the next ship where that vessel’s mate took his turn ...
You might think that the job of a cook aboard a ship would enable a man to escape punishment for his small mistakes. Not quite. He had his own special medicineto take. While not as serious as some of the other punishments, a cook could expect to be “cobbed and firked” for misplacing foodor allowing it to spoil. This was an unofficial type of floggi...
Speaking of “as a boy,” a ship’s crew did not consist only of adult men. Young boyswere often employed, usually beginning at the ages of 11 or 12. Unfortunately for them, age was no barrier to corporal punishment. We can see from surviving ships’ logs that roughly one-third of all floggings were perpetrated against children. At any point in time, a...
One of the worst things you could do in the navy was stealfrom your shipmates. The punishment shows that it was a hated crime by almost all. To run the gauntlet, an offender would be stripped to the waist and flogged as usual with the “thieves’ cat.” This was a cat-o’-nine-tails with extra knots for bonus hit points. The offender would then be forc...
This was an extremely serious offense as being on watch was to guard all the lives aboard a ship. However, life at sea was boring, so falling asleep did happen a lot. If a gravepunishment was meted out for the first offense, a ship would have no crew left. As a result, the consequences would escalate for sleepy sailors. As listed in the Black Book ...
The hanging basket method was not the only means of execution. In the 18th century, such grievous crimes as striking an officer, desertion, or being guilty of “indecent practices” could result in an execution. By the 1800s, this was more for serious things like mutiny or murder. Whatever the crime, a court-martial could end with the order of a hang...
This was possibly the worst punishment during the Age of Sail. Never officially sanctioned by the Royal Navy due to its barbaric cruelty to the condemned, keelhauling was still carried out on numerous occasions before being banned around the year 1720. The victim would be stripped naked on the deck of a ship in full sight of the rest of the crew. H...
- 3 min
Life at sea during the age of sail was filled with hardship. Sailors had to accept cramped conditions, disease, poor food and pay, and bad weather. Over a period of hundreds of years, seafarers from the age of the early explorers to the time of the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, shared many common experiences.
Fifty one passengers and 122 members of the City of Benares' crew were lost - 101 of the lost crew were Indian sailors, known as 'lascars'. In addition, of the 90 children who had been aboard, 77 died in the sinking. Among the dead was Beryl Myatt. The news of the sinking took some days to reach the families of those lost at sea.
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Oct 5, 2024 · On 10 th April 1912 Frederick and Augusta Goodwin and their six children all boarded the new ship the Titanic at Southampton in England. They were third class passengers on its maiden voyage to New York. The Goodwin children who died were: Lillian 16, Charles 14, William 11, Jessie 10, Harold 9 and baby Sidney 19 months old.
