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Search for relatives of Sunderland children who died on WW2 ship

Volunteers are looking for relatives of children who died on board a World War Two evacuation ship ahead of a memorial service. Eleven children from Sunderland were travelling on the SS City of Benares when the vessel was torpedoed in the North Atlantic on 17 September of them survived, with a service at Sunderland Minster in September set to remember the tragedy. Rose Roberts, secretary of the Sunderland Volunteer Life Brigade (SVLB), which organises the event, vowed to preserve the future of the memorial. It has been taking place every five years since ship was carrying 90 child evacuees to Canada, and 77 of them died. The sinking of the ship put a stop to the short-lived policy of overseas Wright and Billy Short were the only Sunderland children to survive the Short, who was about nine years old at the time, had been attending every memorial service until his death in 2016. "Now that Billy's not here, as long as we can, we will continue marking the anniversary every five years," Mrs Roberts said. Mr Short's younger brother Peter, five, was also on board, but did not survive. "It's important the modern-day youngsters know what happened during the war and how children died and what a difficult time it was for the parents," Mrs Roberts said. "I think they should be remembered so in future wars the same thing doesn't happen again." Mrs Roberts said one of the Sunderland children lost his life while rescuing another Crawford, 13, had made it safely into a lifeboat when he reached over to help another boy. The boy survived, but Geoffrey lost his balance and fell in the water, she other Sunderland children who lost their lives wereMaureen Dixon, aged 10Derek Leigh, aged 11Edith and Irene Smith, aged 13 and 10Thomas William, aged 9Ann Jordeson Watson, aged 6Dorothy Wood, aged 6The SVLB is now calling for their relatives to share their stories, so they can be included in the memorial will take place on 21 September at 15:00 BST. Follow BBC Sunderland on X, Facebook, Nextdoor and Instagram.