Evening star., 1940-09-27
BY the Associated Press.

By the Associated Press.
LONDON, Sept. 27.-Back in Eng
land today are 46 persons-includ-
ing six schoolboys-Who spent eight
days of peril and hardship in a
storm -buffeted lifeboat after the
City of Benares went to the bottom
600 miles out in the Atlantic.
Rescued through the combined
work of two British flying boats and
warship, the survivors were landed
at British port last night.
I'VE lost al count of time after
the first two or three days" said
Mary Cornish, 2l-year-old school
teacher-escort and only woman in
the lifeboat.
But the children were admirable.
They passed the time singing and
telling stories They were quite
cheerful and to help them along
We had a serial-my own version of
Bulldog Drummond. Never at any
time did the boys complain"
Two hundred and forty eight of
those aboard the Canada bound
City of Benares, II of them evacuee
children, still are missing and miss
ing and probably are dead. The
vessel went down September II.
The British claim she was torpedoed.
Boy Sights Airplane.
Thirteen-year- old Kenneth Sparks
was the first to see the Sunderland
flying boat of the coast command
which sighted the 46 floating in the
storm tossed waters.
Il shouted. Look! an airplane.
Kenneth said. Everybody looked
up and was glad We started praying.
All us children did. We prayed and
prayed that the plane would come
near enough to see us. The plane
cirCled us. One seaman Signalled,
and the plane signalled back with
light"
The Sunderland. an Australian
air force plane, just had been re-
lieved from convoy duty when 1t
found the nfeboat. The pilot flew
to the convoy and asked another
Sunderland to take over the rescue
because he was running short Of
gasoline. The second flying boat
sped to the scene, dropped food by
parachute and few away to bring
back a rescuing warship.
Bohdan Nagorski, 49. a Polish
shipping millionaire, one OF the
rescued, said they were almost out
of food and absolutely without water
when the flying boat appeared over
their lifeboat, which held 80 Lascars,
S white crew members and escorts,
in addition to the boys and Nagorski.
Children Behaved Magnificiently.
THE children behaved mag
nificiently,' he said. Heavy seas
burst over us time and again, and
it took all of our time to save the
children from being carried over
board
Miss Cornish said the excitement
was terrific" when Kenneth first
spotted the flying boat.
II think we all thought we'd be
able simply to swarm up the SIDES
of the rescuing ship. What &C
tually happened was that we had
to be ANONYMOUSLY carried aboard,
for none of us could stand, after
lying so long"
The mother of one of the res
cued boys, William Cunningham
Short, 9. of Sunderland exclaimed:
THE news is almost too good to be
true" Her younger son. Peter, still
is missing, but her husband COM
mented: This gives us hope that
Peter too, may yet prove to have
been saved"
Miss Cornish Tells Story.
Miss Cornish. who devised exer-
cises for the boys in their cramped
quarters, was the heroine OF the
dramatic sea rescue. Her story fol-
lows:
Il was walking on the deck when
the torpedo struck but was FORUM
ate enough to be near the cabins
of the children in my charge. I
rusned down to get them and then
went back to bring up other chill
dren. ..
Although there was no panic it
was impossible to get to the life
boat station which had been allo-
Gated to US, as gangways were
blocked. and when 1t was finally our
turn to go into the boat I found
myself with the six little boys.
I'VE were fortunate, for our life
boat went down into the water with
out any trouble and got away.
by the time night came we had
completely lost contact with other
lifeboats and the waves were so
high that even if they had been only
slight distance away we could not
have seen them.
With some canvas the seamen
rugged up a shelter in the bows and
we lay there protected In some
measure from the wild seas, but we
had only one blanket for three boys.
Our main trouble was to keep our