FL14369405

Addition to p.99

1.3.3 JAMES HASSALL HOPE

One of James and Emily Hope's daughters, Fannie Isabel Hope, married Robert Frederick
Maberly Smith, later a Major in the army. They had a daughter, Margaret, whose remarkable
story has just been revealed in The Age newspaper of 5 June 1999. She was born in Colac,
Victoria on 3 February 1910 and was brought up in the Melbourne suburb of Sandringham and
attended Clyde School at Mt Macedon where she was dux. She attended the University of
Melbourne and graduated as a teacher and taught at Morongo Girls' College in Geelong. In 1936
she travelled to England for the coronation of Edward VIII and on the way stopped off at Quetta
in India, where she met Crawford Gordon, a Scot and deputy chief engineer with the Bengal-
Assam Railways in Baluchistan. They married in St Thomas Cathedral, Bombay in October
1937 - she was 27 and he was 40.

After Japan forced the British out of Burma, Gordon fled back to India and was struck
down with dengue fever which resulted in him having a nervous breakdown and becoming victim
to persecution mania. His wife also suffered from the fever but was able to recover better than
he did. They decided to return to England so they secured a passage on the SS City of Cairo, an
8000 tonne passenger boat that had seen better days but still retained some Edwardian charm.
There were 300 passengers and crew - most of the passengers were a war-affected group of
elderly Indian civil servants, judges, businessmen, young war widows and tradesmen returning
from an ill-fated Bristish war-time glider project in India.

Because of the danger of German U-Boats the Cairo crossed the Indian Ocean to
Durban, rounded the South African coast to Cape Town, moved up the west coast of Africa then
headed across the Atlandtic for South America from where the ship hoped to hug the American
coast to Halifax and then cross to England with a Royal Naval escort. This made for a very long
journey on a ship whose average speed was barely 10 knots. Six days out of Cape Town on 6
November 1942 the ship was hit by a torpedo from a German U-boat. Gathering warm clothing,
survival bags, blankets and torches the passengers and crew boarded life boats. Margaret Gordon
boarded one but her husband missed it and got into another which was late leaving the ship and
was caught in the ship's suction as it sank and he was drowned. Margaret was thrown into the
sea but was rescued and ultimately put into a smaller 21 feet long life boat under the command
of Cairo's third officer, 25 year old James ''Knocker'' Whyte.

The German U-boat surfaced and Kapitan zur See Karl-Fredrich Merten gave the
survivors the position of St. Helena, the nearest island 500 miles away, and disappeared. The six
surviving lifeboats attempted to stay together but after seven nights the small lifeboat drifted
away from the others and commenced a long tragic journey of its own. There were 16 on board
10 Lascars, and six European crew members and passengers, Margaret Gordon was the only
female. There was limited food and little water during the 52 day ordeal during which 14 of the
people on board died. Margaret Gordon displayed remarkable strength, fortitude and resilience
as she kept the other passengers as well as possible, cheered and encouraged them until they died.
She and James Whyte became the only survivors with Whyte attending to the equipment on the
boat and showing determination to survive the ordeal. On 27 December they saw a Brazilian
ship and after sending off the last of their flares were taken on board a Brazilian corvette which
took them to the town of Recife in Brazil, where they recovered in hospital.