The Belgian troopship SS Léopoldville had simply slipped beneath the English Channel after being hit by a torpedo. Gerald Howard went down with the ship. The 23-year-old rifleman almost drowned beneath the frigid water like lots of of his comrades. He fought his manner again to the floor.
“I used to be on the ship till it went down,” Howard recalled many years later. “It pulled me down, and once I got here up I noticed a life raft. They stated ‘You’ll be able to’t get on.’ I stated, ‘Like hell I am unable to.'”
Howard awoke round midnight in a hospital in Cherbourg, France. He was among the many fortunate ones. On that Christmas Eve in 1944, a German U-boat torpedo killed 763 American troopers simply 5 miles from the French shoreline. Almost 500 our bodies have been by no means recovered from the water.
The U.S. authorities buried the story for many years. It was the deadliest U-boat assault on American troopers despatched to struggle in World Struggle II.
A Ship Stuffed with Replacements
The Battle of the Bulge was tearing by American traces in Belgium. Hitler’s shock offensive had shattered the 106th Infantry Division and mauled a number of others. Allied commanders wanted contemporary troops instantly.
The 66th Infantry Division acquired orders to maneuver out on Dec. 23, 1944. The “Black Panther” Division had been coaching in southern England for weeks. Now 2,235 troopers from the 262nd and 264th Infantry Regiments would cross the English Channel to Cherbourg.
Boarding started at 2 a.m. on Christmas Eve. The method adopted no clear or rehearsed plan. The regiments combined collectively. Corporations have been separated. Platoons scattered randomly all through the 478-foot Belgian liner. The fragmented loading separated the chain of command earlier than the vessel even left the dock. Many others have been positioned on a special troop ship.
The Léopoldville was a Belgian passenger liner chartered by the British Admiralty for troop transport. She had crossed the Channel 24 occasions with out incident. Her Belgian captain, Charles Limbor, had commanded the ship since 1942. The crew gave orders in Flemish. Few American troopers understood a phrase.
A lifeboat drill was introduced over the ship’s loudspeakers shortly after departure. Many troopers by no means heard it. Those that did merely stood at their stations whereas officers made spot checks. No one defined methods to launch the lifeboats or correctly put on a life jacket.
Pvt. John Pordon of San Francisco remembered the depressing voyage. Seasickness swept by the cramped holds because the ship bounced by the Channel swells.
“We have been all griping about what a awful manner it was to spend Christmas,” Pordon recalled. “Little did we all know.”
5 Miles From Shore
German submarine U-486 waited beneath the floor off Cherbourg. The Sort VIIC boat was on her first struggle patrol beneath Oberleutnant Gerhard Meyer. She had already sunk one British vessel days earlier. Then he noticed the incoming convoy.
At 5:54 p.m., Meyer fired. The torpedo struck the Léopoldville’s starboard aspect and detonated within the Quantity 4 cargo maintain. Compartments E-4, F-4 and G-4 flooded immediately. The blast destroyed the entry ladders. Roughly 300 males have been trapped under.
“It felt like an earthquake,” Pordon stated.
Troopers all through the ship felt the impression and understood what had simply occurred. They moved to the deck with self-discipline. They lined up in formation and waited for directions from the crew.
These directions by no means got here. The ship’s loudspeakers introduced {that a} tug was coming. Captain Limbor ordered his crew to desert ship at 6:25 p.m. The troopers watched in disbelief because the crew climbed into the few lifeboats and rowed away. No official abandon ship order was given to the American troops.
A lot of the escorting vessels, together with the HMS Anthony, HMS Hotham and French Frigate Croix de Lorraine went after the submarine.
The Rescue Begins
The British destroyer HMS Sensible served as a part of the convoy’s escort. Her captain, Commander John Pringle, confronted a nightmare state of affairs. The British Royal Navy operated on totally different radio frequencies than American forces in Cherbourg. The 2 allies couldn’t speak instantly. Almost an hour handed earlier than Cherbourg’s port authorities discovered the troopship was sinking.
It was Christmas Eve. Lots of of vessels sat in Cherbourg harbor with chilly engines. Skeleton crews manned the docks. The port operated at minimal staffing.
The Sensible pulled alongside the sinking troopship at 6:25 p.m. The destroyer’s deck sat roughly 40 toes under the Léopoldville’s rail. Swells of eight to 12 toes rocked each vessels. Troopers jumped for the smaller ship.
John Waller, a 19-year-old personal from Kansas, watched males try the leap. “I used to be in line to leap when the 2 ships collided,” he recalled. “These guys jumped from the Léopoldville, they missed. They fell in between and have been killed.”
British sailors hauled their hammocks onto deck to cushion the falls. Some troopers broke their legs touchdown on the torpedo tubes. Many others have been crushed between the hulls because the vessels slammed collectively within the surf.
The Sensible took on roughly 500 males earlier than her captain pulled away. The overloaded destroyer headed for port. Pringle later acquired an official reprimand for his selections that night time. Greater than 1,200 troopers remained aboard the Léopoldville.
Heroes within the Darkness
Some males refused to avoid wasting themselves. Capt. Hal Crain, a West Level graduate from California, gave away his personal life jacket. He moved by the sinking ship trying to find wounded males, pulling them to security. He went down with the Léopoldville.
Survivor Walter Brown spent years petitioning the Army to acknowledge Crain’s heroic deeds. In March 1997, Crain acquired a posthumous Silver Star.
Pfc. William Holmes of Tennessee climbed under decks right into a flooded compartment the place males have been trapped. He pulled one soldier out, then went again. He cleared wreckage from a stairway so others may escape. He introduced out two extra injured males.
Because the ship started to vanish beneath the waves, Holmes stood on the rail forcing troopers over the aspect till the deck beneath him went beneath. He went down with the ship and acquired a posthumous Soldier’s Medal.
The 262nd Regiment’s medical detachment made a collective selection. They stayed aboard to deal with the wounded whereas others tried to flee. Solely eight medics survived. Nineteen our bodies have been by no means discovered.
The ship started itemizing laborious round 8 p.m. Males tumbled into the Channel carrying full area gear, winter overcoats and helmets. No one had taught them methods to enter the water safely. Troopers who hit the floor with chinstraps fixed had their necks damaged by the power of impression.
Waller walked down the aspect of the ship because it rolled. “I used to be there for 40-50 minutes in freezing, ice-cold water, earlier than I used to be pulled out of the water and right into a small fishing boat,” he stated.
The Léopoldville slipped beneath the floor at 8:40 p.m. She had stayed afloat almost three hours after the torpedo hit. Rescue vessels from Cherbourg pulled our bodies from the darkness all through the night time. Many troopers they hauled aboard had already frozen to dying.
The Cowl-Up
The Army instantly ordered the survivors not to discuss the sinking. Navy censors reviewed their letters house for the rest of the struggle. Upon discharge, the troopers have been warned that discussing the incident with the press would value them their veterans advantages.
The federal government despatched the households obscure notifications in regards to the lack of their family members, unfold out over the course of months. This was more likely to stop the general public from realizing a serious lack of life in a singular incident had occurred. Some family members discovered their sons have been lifeless. Others have been advised solely that family members have been lacking in motion. A lot of them by no means found what truly occurred.
Chuck Mathison was two years previous when his father boarded the Léopoldville. His mom acquired phrase that her husband was lacking.
“It was a number of months earlier than she was advised he was lifeless,” Mathison stated. He didn’t study his father was buried at Normandy American Cemetery till 45 years later.
The grief destroyed some households. Pfc. Garvis Dillinger of Mississippi was 18 years previous. He had stop faculty to volunteer for service. His mom was so distraught over his dying that she spent a yr in a hospital recovering from the loss.
The Carlson twins from Jamestown, New York, each died that night time. Carl had studied artwork. Clarence performed the accordion and deliberate to proceed his music research after the struggle. Neither of the brothers was ever discovered.
A British memo from March 1946 defined the Allied reasoning for silence. It acknowledged the story of the Léopoldville doesn’t replicate effectively for the struggle effort. It additional acknowledged that the disclosure of the incident to the general public was to be finished when the timing was proper.
American paperwork associated to the sinking have been declassified solely in 1959. The federal government made no effort to tell the households of the revelation. British data remained sealed till 1996.
Breaking the Silence
Allan Andrade spent three years investigating the catastrophe. The retired New York Metropolis police lieutenant used his detective expertise to trace down survivors throughout the nation. He revealed his findings in 1997.
“I used my police background to trace down lots of of individuals,” Andrade stated. “I attempted to place faces on the statistics.”
Survivor Vincent Codianni of Waterbury, Connecticut, labored with Andrade to push for official recognition for the Léopoldville catastrophe. Their efforts satisfied the Army to approve a memorial at Fort Benning, Georgia. The monument was devoted on Nov. 7, 1997.
Troopers and survivors from the 66th Infantry Division lastly started reorganizing in France two days after Christmas 1944. They spent the remainder of the struggle containing German holdouts at Lorient and St. Nazaire. The Black Panther Division had misplaced 763 males earlier than firing a shot in fight.
U-486 didn’t survive the struggle. On April 12, 1945, the British submarine HMS Tapir torpedoed the German boat off the coast of Norway. All 48 crewmen perished. It was one of many solely occasions a submarine sank an enemy submarine in fight.
The Léopoldville stays on the Channel ground north of Cherbourg. The wreck was found by Clive Cussler of the Nationwide Underwater and Marine Company in 1984. France later designated it as a struggle grave.
Gerald Howard, the rifleman who clawed his manner onto a life raft, lived into his 80s. He by no means understood why the Army pressured him to remain silent.
“I can perceive through the struggle,” he stated. “After the struggle nobody advised me to maintain a secret.”
Though the occasion was declassified and formally acknowledged by the Army with a number of memorials on either side of the Atlantic, most individuals stay unaware of the sinking of the SS Léopoldville. The 763 males of the 66th Infantry Division that have been misplaced on Christmas Eve in 1944 characterize the biggest lack of American life to a German submarine throughout WWII.
