Recommended Readings

There are a number of good books about the City of Benares disaster that I have used for my research. Here are some suggestions if you would like to find out more:

Barker, Ralph. Children of the Benares: A War Crime and Its Victims. Liverpool: Avid Publishers, 2003.

Huxley, Elspeth. Atlantic Ordeal: The Story of Mary Cornish. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1942

Mann, Jessica. Out of Harm’s Way: The Wartime Evacuation of Children from Britain. London: Headline Book Publishing, 2006

Menzies, Janet. Children of the Doomed Voyage. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, 2005.

Nagorski, Tom. Miracles on the Water: The Heroic Survivors of a World War II U-Boat Attack. New York: Hyperion, 2007.

Smith, Lyn. Young Voices, Viking, 2007

Summers, Julie. When the Children Came Home: Stories from Wartime Evacuees. London: Simon & Schuster, 2011

Excellent websites include:


The Imperial War Museum:

http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/80020747


The BBC’s WW2 People’s War:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/80/a6192380.shtml


Mackenzie J Gregory’s Ahoy—Mac’s Web Log:

Naval, Maritime, Australian History and More: 

http://ahoy.tk-jk.net/Letters/PicturesoftheSSCityofBena.html


The Wartime Memories Project:

http://www.wartimememories.co.uk/ships/cityofbenares.html


Uboat.net: 

http://uboat.net/allies/merchants/crews/ship532.html


Liverpool Blitz at 70:

http://www.liverpoolblitz70.co.uk/tag/city-of-benares/


Collective Worship Resource, Bess’s speech on forgiveness: 

http://cowo.culham.ac.uk/assemblies/011s_forgiving.php