Tag: World War II

Child Migrants, events

Child passenger ship torpedoed by U-boat

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by Oliver Cosgrove (guest author) on 7 July, 2011

The passenger ship the City of Benares, carrying 90 children evacuated to Canada from Liverpool, was torpedoed by U-boat, U-48 on 13 September 1940. Only 13 children survived.

The children were temporary evacuees and not Child Migrants. Nevetheless, the incident demonstrates the danger of sea voyages during World War Two. The Wartime Memories Project would like to hear from anyone who has any connections with the City of Benares.

Read more on the Wartime Memories Project – City of Benares website.

Child Migrants, memories

The orphan who unorphaned himself

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by Patrick O’Flaherty (guest author) on 1 July, 2011

Patrick O’Flaherty arrived in  Australia in 1947 thinking he was a war orphan and not knowing that his mother was alive in England. Read Patrick’s contribution to ‘Where’s the fair go? The decline of equity in Australia’, for more on his life in Australia, his shaky reunion with his mother and reconnecting with his family in Wales and Ireland.

Patrick was eight when he arrived on the SS Asturias.

Download Patrick’s ‘The orphan who unorphaned himself’ (PDF 262kb) from Where’s the Fair Go? The Decline of Equity in Australia, edited by Ian Rae and published by Delegate Productions Books in 2003.