Third Engineer Officer John Gibbeson

Third Engineer Officer John Cecil Gibbeson, Merchant Navy. He was lost at sea aboard the S.S. “City of Benares” on 17th September 1940, aged 30. He was the son of John amd Cecily Gibbeson and is commemorated on the Tower Hill Memorial, London. The “City of Benares” was built by Lithgows of Glasgow and launched in 1936 with a gross 11,000 tonnage. In September 1940 she had sailed in convoy to Canada with passengers including 90 children who were being evacuated. On 19th of that month she was torpedoed by U-48 253 miles S.W. of Rockall. Of her complement of 407, 260 passengers and crew were lost including 77 of the children. ( John Gibbeson is not commemorated on the War Memorial but is on his mother’s headstone in Norham churchyard ).