In September 1940 the SS City of Benares was being used as an evacuation ship under the scheme of the Children's Overseas Reception Board to evacuate children to Canada in World War Two, carrying 90 child evacuees among her passengers. On 18th September, the ship was torpedoed and sunk by German U-boat U-48. 77 of the children died along with 183 other people, and the sinking resulted in the cancellation of the CORB plan to evacuate British children abroad. Here Mrs Lilian Towns, one of the two government escorts who were saved from the sinking ship.