The school playground reception areas seemed to be chaotic, hundreds of parents and children not really knowing what to do and where to go. Many sought the advice of "officials" who promptly asked, 'surname?' then depending to the first letter of your name you had to register in a certain queue. This was where many of the children got irritable, children do not like standing helplessly in queues at the best of times, and being loaded down with luggage did not make things any better. But, many of them did start to make new friends while breaking the boredom of just doing....nothing. Parents and mothers too, started conversations with total strangers, and many questions started to be thrown about which of course, no one had the answers.

Children nearly always confided in the teachers, with the movement of so many children the process was only moving slowly, so teachers very often became mothers or fathers, and apply themselves to such duties as comforting some, organizing others yet maintain a well drilled outfit so that even the children at least had an idea as to what to do next.
One on the train that was to take them to their new home, more problems came to light. On the short journeys, railway carriages had no corridor and it presented a problem of being able to keep an eye on all the children at the same time as others were in separate compartments. Certain children had to get out at certain stations along the way, this was a decision that was only known to the authorities and not the teachers.

On the longer journeys, most of the carriages had corridors where the teachers could keep an eye on their flock, usually one teacher from one school to a carriage, although in some cases schools shared carriages so that there were often two or three teachers from different schools to a carriage. Queues often formed at the toilets, and many children did not hurry themselves, and many a time a child had wet or messed themselves, and it was the teacher that had to find clean underwear, wash the child and make sure that the child was once again comfortable. It must be remembered, that in normal circumstances, trains on long distance were often express and non-stop, but with so many additional trains, some running one behind the other, long trips were slow and tedious. Many trains came to a halt, usually just prior to a junction and stayed there for almost half an hour before slowly moving on again. There was no such thing as timetables in this time of evacuation.

But the areas being evacuated were the highly populated areas of the cities. Most of the children came from slum areas, and the east end of London was typical of this. Boroughs such as Hackney, Bethnal Green, Shoreditch, Whitechapel, Wapping, Limehouse, West Ham, East Ham, Leyton and Poplar were areas where most of the men worked in the docklands, at the power stations and at the large factories of John Knight's soap works, the rubber works at Silvertown, the Leathercloth works at West Ham and the chemical factory of A. Boake Roberts at Stratford. Men worked long hours for just average pay and being as owning your own house in the east end was just about unheard of, most lived in rented accommodation. No houses had a bathroom, so as I have previously mentioned, a weekly visit to the local council baths was routine with most families. Toilets in the house was also something that was unheard of in most cases, usually these were outside in the cold and dark of the back yard.

Before the war broke out, the British government had received a letter from a family in Southern Rhodesia stating that due to the unrest in Britain, and with the possibility of a war breaking out, that it would be a good idea to send children to the various Dominions within the commonwealth for the reasons of safety. It does appear, that the government did not favour the idea at the time and the letter was "filed" with a note attached saying that it was a good hearted suggestion, but the whole idea was impractical. Later, as the threat of war loomed closer, similar letters were received from Canada and Australia.

Already, it had been estimated that over 10,000 children had been sent overseas privately, but there is no accurate record of this. But as soon as CORB was made public, it became inundated with in excess of over 200,000 applications. The scheme was in existence for only two weeks, and had to refuse any further applications and closed.

In all, 3,100 children were evacuated under the CORB scheme during July and September 1940 to Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa. The transportation of shipping at that period was dangerous, German U-boats were operating in the Atlantic and many convoys became victims of these German hunters. Two ships carrying CORB children were sunk by enemy raiders. One was the Dutch Liner Volendam that had 320 children bound for Canada. Leaving Britain with convoy OB205, that consisted of 32 other ships. On August 30th 1940 at about 11.00pm the convoy was attacked by U-boats, and U-60 fired her torpedoes with one of them going right through the Volendam. All lifeboats were safely dropped and the 320 children were rescued. Other than the ship, the only other casualty was the ships purser who was killed.

On September 13th 1940, the liner City of Benares that was carrying 90 children bound for homes in Canada, left Liverpool with another liner Diomed carrying 18 CORB male evacuees and a huge cargo of aeroplane wings. The ships were in convoy OB213 and were 1000 kilometres out into the Atlantic and in an area noted for U-boat attacks. The weather was bad, and was getting worse. For some reason, the convoys three escorts had been taken away from OB213 to give protection to some incoming ships, and for the time being, it left OB213 weak and open to attack. The City of Benares was leading the convoy, and had no protection and in the inclement weather was making only slow speed. The ships kept a straight course, not taking any evasive action in the open sea and were unaware that they were being shadowed by German U-boat U-48.
In the dark and inclement weather, at about 10.00pm, U-48 turned towards the convoy OB213, and picked out the leading ship, the City of Benares. The German attacker closed in and Kapitanleutnant Heinrich Bleichrodt gave the order to fire two torpedoes. With an horrific roar, and a sudden column of flame the City of Benares was torn apart. Turning, U-48 fired more torpedoes and two other ships in convoy OB213 were hit.

Hurriedly the lifeboats from the City of Benares were launched, but in the wild weather most of these either capsized before they reached the water, or they were swamped by the cold, huge waves. Next day, HMS Hurricane came to pick up survivors, but all that it accomplished was the collection of dead bodies, casualties of both the bitterly cold water and the weather. It was by a miracle that on trying to pluck bodies from an upturned lifeboat that HMS Hurricane realized that two young girls were still alive, 15 year old Beth Wilder, and 14 year old Beth Cummings would live to tell of the ordeal of the Benares. They were two of the 13 of the 90 CORB children on board that survived.

There was outrage within the British government that children should have been innocent victims of war, Churchill the least impressed because it was he who rejected the passage of children on vessels plying in the Atlantic Ocean. In his position, he had more important things to worry about, but he wanted to know, why was this allowed to happen without his approval, that the scheme went ahead on a memo that "the scheme was approved only on as far as it was allowed for a report to be released.

Many children found it strange in their new surroundings and were very nervous, they had known no other parents except their own, and in the country areas the rural lifestyle was completely different to which they had been used to. But many settled down in the new environment and stayed for the duration of the war, while others were taken back by their families as life was still "normal" in places such as London and in other big cities. The heavy bombing that had been forecast, never came.

When Christmas was the time to be with loved ones, many children were taken back home to their parents, but of all those that went home, a quarter of them stayed and did not return to their foster parents. The government started asking that parents should pay a contribution towards the cost of keeping the children, naturally most were poor and could not afford it, and slowly the children went back to their parents, by 1944, most evacuations had ceased despite cities still being bombed, and the evacuation scheme was terminated.

But evacuation was not without serious problems. On a number of occasions while the children were in the safe haven of the rural areas, their parents had been killed in the "Blitz". One could not expect the temporary foster parents to adopt them as their own, although in a number of cases it did happen. But most were sent to orphanages which soon became overcrowded. After the war many were shipped to orphanages overseas, to such places as Australia and Canada, which were run by church and catholic institutions, but now it is being revealed that in Australia many of these children had been subject to sexual misuse by Christian fathers, but because of impending inquiries that are now being looked into I cannot and am not at liberty to reveal any more than that.

Some children were told that their parents had been killed in air raids when the truth was that they hadn't, these too were sent to orphanages overseas. Only recently a war orphan was reunited with his brother after 55 years, only to be informed that their parents were not killed during the war, their house was bombed, but they had taken refuge elsewhere and survived. Again, I cannot report any details. But it happened, many children and parents were told lies and the outcome was, that they were never repatriated with their families when peace finally came to Britain.

With the temporary foster parents, things were hard for them as well. When asked at the outset of war that would they take in a child from the cities, they not only felt sorry for the children, but the British way of life was "Let's Stick Together", they were going to do their 'bit' by taking the children in. They were not expecting to house children that had no changes of clothing or were ridden with disease, many just took it in their stride and got the children cleaned up and re-clothed them at their own expense, but others complained and said that disease ridden and dirty children were not welcome to the clean life of the country.