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As the Battle of the Atlantic raged, on Thursday 29 August 1940, the Dutch steamship Volendam set sail from Liverpool bound for Canada via New York. With a German invasion of Britain imminent, on board were 321 children or 'sea-vacs' and over 500 other passengers, including a 56-year-old naturalist, filmmaker and falconer by the name of Captain Charles Knight. Travelling with him was his showbiz partner, a golden eagle with a six-foot wingspan. His name was Mr Ramshaw and he had made Knight a celebrity on both sides of the Atlantic.
At 11 pm the next night, a huge explosion tore through the ship which soon began to list badly. The German submarine, U-60, had fired two torpedoes at the Volendam, who was abandoned to her fate. In the chaos left behind was Knight's golden eagle, Mr Ramshaw, and a 9-year-old boy called Robert. Miraculously both survived, Knight being reunited with Mr Ramshaw days later while the British government produced a classic Gaumont film about the attack called 'Children torpedoed by Nazis'.
The amazing life of Captain Charles Knight and his golden eagle, Mr Ramshaw, reads like an adventure from The Boy's Own Paper. It is the story of how Knight rose, from working in a tobacconist's shop in Kent before the First World War, to become one of the most famous naturalists, filmmakers and falconers in the world.
