"Oh, Mum! Oh, Mum!"

The pink-cheeked cadets, aged 9 to 13, of the Royal Marine Volunteer Corps were determined to look their smartest on the march to the Royal Naval Barracks, Chatham, Kent, one evening last week. Proud members of an unofficial outfit sponsored by officers of the Royal Marine Forces, the youngsters were on their way to watch a boxing tournament in the camp of their Royal Navy counterparts. Marching crisply, they swung in a column three abreast along the narrow (27 ft.) tunnel of Dock Road.

Bus Driver John William George Samson, 57, known as "Sambo" to many of the boys, was experiencing a different kind of pride that night. Just a year before, the Chatham Traction Co. had given him a fine chiming clock in honor of 40 faithful years in their employ. As Samson mounted his double-decker bus last week, to take it once again over a run he knew as well as the back of his hand, he was looking forward to another company dinner the next night, at which he would rank as an acknowledged elder statesman among bus drivers.

Along the familiar route of Dock Road, Samson guided his bus as he had more than 1,000 times before. Then suddenly there was a series of bumps and agonizing screams. Samson ground to a stop."What's happened?" his conductress,Dorothy Dunster, called out. "I don't know," said Samson, dismounting and running to the rear. Then, "Oh, my God!" he cried. "What have I done?"

A naval petty officer described the scene later: "It was dark, and suddenly I heard screams. It made me go cold because it was the high-pitched screams of children. I saw a bus stop, and three of us ran blindly up the road. We saw the boys. They were spread out from one side of the road to the other." "I picked up a boy," said one of his friends, and he cried: 'Oh, Mum! Oh, Mum!' I put him on the side and went to two others. I cradled them, but they died in my arms." Of 52 boys in the column, 17 had been killed; six died later; eight were seriously injured.

Two days later, in the drab green patients' dayroom of the Naval Hospital, red-eyed mothers stood beside stiff-backed menfolk in their Sunday best for the grimmest inquest in local history. "You have seen Body No. 1?" the coroner asked one couple. "Yes." "Were his full names Raymond Peter Cross?" "Yes." "Was he aged eleven years?" "Yes." "Thank you. Will you sign here?" And so it went. Trained nurses led a stream of weeping witnesses in & out of the room. Alone and unnoticed at the back stood Driver Samson, twisting his cap round & round in his hands, speaking to nobody. When the 23rd body had been identified, he collapsed.

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