Seaview Sailor Who Reunited WW2 Survivors Hopes Story Will ‘Live On'

Friday, 25 September 2020 06:00

By Iona Stewart-Richardson @IslandIona

A Seaview sailor who made history by reuniting the survivors of one of the worst World War Two tragedies involving children - wants the story to live on forever.

81-year-old Blake Simms, who now lives in Cowes became so fascinated by the City of Benares Tragedy, he was inspired to track down and reunite the survivors.

After much deliberation and 48 years on from the disaster he also managed to persuade the German U-Boats to meet the survivors in 1988.

The reunions not only made the headlines at the time but also led to an unexpected love story.

What is the City of Benares Tragedy?

260 people and 87 children lost their lives on Friday 17 September 1940.

The SS City of Benares steamship, bound for Canada had 90 Government children on board - of which only 13 survived - when it was hit by two out of five Nazi torpedoes.

It was targetted at 10pm and sank in the Atlantic within half an hour. There was complete panic as people scrambled to the lifeboats.

In one case, a young boy tried to go back to the ship to retrieve his little brother’s lifejacket that he had forgotten...they never saw each other again.

Because of the tragedy, The Children’s Overseas Reception Board, which was established just three months prior to the incident - with the aim of evacuating 210,000 British children to Canada, Australia and New Zealand - was ordered to disband immediately.

Blake’s father, Lt. Commander Hugh Crofton Simms was 301 miles away and captain of a ship called HMS Hurricane when he received a message from the Admiralty at around midnight alerting him of the disaster.

A poem by Blake's father written just days after the incident

‘A story of humanity’

In just under 14 hours, Blake’s father arrived at the devastating scene. He spent five hours scouring the sea to rescue as many people as possible.

He saved 115 people. HMS Hurricane also rescued survivors from the Merchant Ship SS Marina that was hit - all 15 people on board managed to get into lifeboats though, but the captain went down with his ship.

Among those rescued by Blakes father were three children - who sadly didn’t survive the journey back to Glasgow.

Blake said his father was “deeply affected” by their deaths and he gave them a “magnificent” sunset burial, after wrapping their bodies in a Union Jack Flag. Blake told Isle of Wight Radio:

“...There are many other heroes other than my Father….He wrote to the parents of each child saying what had happened and that he had given them a sunset burial because he thought they deserved a proper burial.”

A series of unusual historical reunions

Blake said he “couldn’t stop” himself becoming emotionally invested and interested in the story - encouraging him to track down the survivors.

He then spent the next fifteen years organising annual reunions.

Initially, his appeal to find the survivors and anyone who served with his father in the Second World War was publicised in the papers, Blake said:

“I thought I was rich one day and I bought a boat - I thought I would call it Hurricane Too - I didn’t know much about my Father then….About six weeks before I launched it I sent out an invite”.

At the first gathering on 12 April 1973, ten survivors gathered in Gosport to attend "the almighty party", but over the years Blake said more and more people came forward:

“The number’s built up and I couldn’t stop it - as we were re-creating history”.

The most notable reunions to follow were in Shoreham in 1974 and in Earl’s Court, London in 1985.

Watch a video of Isle of Wight Radio's Iona interviewing Blake...

With the help of the U-Boat Museum, Blake also managed to track down the German soldiers who torpedoed the ship, and after much liaising and persuasion he convinced them to meet the survivors.

However, prior to this, he conversed with the survivors - who he was now familiar with - and showed them a letter of apology from the Germans, in which they expressed their deep remorse and admitted they “didn’t know children were on board the ship”.

Eventually, in Gosport in 1988, two of the Germans agreed to attend “the last big reunion” with 125 people, Blake said:

“By 1988 the boys or the hurricanoes were getting a bit old in the tooth and there weren’t that many that could travel - and of course the survivors were all in their 50s and 60s….There will soon be no one around other than the story, which is a story of humanity...The name ‘Hurricane’ won’t die so long as I’m around...”

Scroll through the newspaper headlines of 1940 here...

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“Through all this initial hatred - came love”

Blake said it was “remarkable” that through all this “initial hatred of the tragedy in 1940 - came love”.

In Portsmouth at the 1988 October reunion - the U-Boat diesel mechanic Edouard Hansesn met Kirstin McGlishan, who was the daughter of the second engineer on board the enemy ship.

On their return to Germany, the pair fell in love and later married, Blake said:

“It is staggering to think that out of the hatred initially in this incident in 1940 - that literally fifty years later there is love about, would you believe it?”

He added:

“One good thing that came out of this was that I’m able to account almost exactly where my father was for every day of the war and what he was doing - to the extent that I actually know his last words on the day he died in December 1942.”

Scroll through Blake’s photos here…