HMT Rohna

[Subdeacon Joe]

http://rohnasurvivors.org/

 

Quote

On November 26, 1943, during WWII, one thousand, one hundred and thirty eight men perished when a British troopship, the HMT Rohna, was attacked from the air and destroyed in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Algeria. Two important but virtually unknown historical events occurred at that time.

It was the first successful “hit” of a merchant vessel at sea carrying US troops by a German remote-controlled, rocket-boosted bomb, thus giving birth to the “Missile Age”, and it resulted in the greatest loss of troops (1,015) at sea in U.S. history. Combined with the loss of ship’s crew and officers, and three Red Cross workers, more lives were lost than on the USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor.

The “hit” was so devastating that the U.S. Government placed a veil of secrecy upon it. The events which followed were so shameful that the secrecy continued for decades until recently, when documents were grudgingly released under pressure of the Freedom of Information Act. The government still does not acknowledge this tragedy, thus most families of the casualties still do not know the fate of their loved ones.

https://spectator.org/remembering-the-rohna-a-world-war-ii-secret-and-tragedy/

 

 

[Trailrider #896]

I don't recall the details, although there have been articles written in various magazines, but another terrible disaster occurred when Allied troops were practicing for the D-Day Normandy landings on British beaches.  German PT boats (E-boats?) snuck in among the transports and sank a bunch of the them! The loss of life was very high and Allied headquarters hushed it up lest it cause a morale problem in Britain and give important intel to the Germans.