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Re: Shedding Light on Dark Secrets

From: POW-MIA InterNetwork

Date: August 10, 2003

"Sixty years later, a survivor's story

English Channel tragedy was kept secret

Pembroke

When an Allied troop ship was hit by a German torpedo, 800 men died. Albert LeMay was one of the lucky ones.

PEMBROKE - Albert LeMay kept chickens and goats. He cut his children's hair. He offered help to stranded motorists when he lived along a busy road in Manchester and gave rides to his children's friends.

Occasionally he spoke of his years in the Army during World War II, but LeMay never boasted.

"He was the nicest guy you'd ever meet," said Eric Alley, LeMay's son-in-law. "He was so down-to-earth you'd never have known some of the things he'd been through."

The only clue came once a year in December. LeMay hardly ever attended midnight Mass on Christmas Eve, instead taking his family to church on Christmas morning.

On Dec. 24, 1944, LeMay was one of more than 2,000 soldiers who found themselves facing death when the Belgian ship they were on, the S.S. Leopoldville, was hit by a German torpedo while crossing the English Channel.

Nearly 800 American soldiers were killed. Six hundred were wounded. LeMay survived with slight injuries.

On July 22, he died at the age of 78. Last week, his wife, Jeanne, recounted his experiences, reading from a letter he wrote to his parents and revealing some details to his children they had never heard.

The sinking of the S.S. Leopoldville was the second worst maritime disaster of the war for the United States in terms of casualties.

But for years, it was as if it never happened.

Those who survived were told not to speak of the disaster, and reports about it were classified.

That changed in 1996, when close to 1,000 documents held by the British Admiralty were opened up for review. Families who still had crumbling telegrams from the U.S. War Department saying their sons and husbands were "Missing in Action" found out the men were buried with the ship.

LeMay's family never had to endure that uncertainty. Although he didn't tell his parents what had happened that night until months later, he was one of the lucky ones who came home.

He came home in 1946 decorated, having been awarded a Purple Heart for sustaining injuries and a Bronze Star for his work diffusing land mines, a harrowing job he performed under enemy fire.

He went to work in the family business, fixing cars and then machines. He met and four months later married Jeanne Soucy of Manchester.

The couple had eight children. They eventually moved to Pembroke. LeMay worked as an auditor at the Manchester Holiday Inn and made friends easily with his neighbors.

But the few times he did go to Christmas Eve Mass, his eyes would tear and his wife would notice him rubbing at them.

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Thrown from their bunks

LeMay was only 20 years old when he found himself crossing the English Channel on the Leopoldville, a Belgian luxury ship being used to transport troops.

He had only been in Europe about two weeks, stationed with the 66th Infantry division in Dorset, England, before being ordered to the European continent. He and his unit were reinforcements for the Battle of the Bulge.

In a letter to his parents written in July 1945, LeMay described the events of that night.

The torpedo hit shortly before 6 p.m. on Christmas Eve, the explosion rocking the ship so hard men were thrown from their bunks and doors slammed shut with such force they couldn't be opened again.

Like many of the 2,235 troops on board, LeMay grabbed his lifejacket and ran to the deck. (Some men never made it that far; they were trapped in cabins by the doors that had jammed shut.) The men stood in formation awaiting orders that never came.

But unlike many of the men around him, LeMay had a firsthand account from the crew of the difficulty they were having with the ship. He could speak French.

"He knew what they were saying," said his son Albert LeMay, the youngest of his eight children. "He knew about the problems they were having when a lot of the other men didn't."

Although there were four British destroyers escorting the ship, when the U-boat struck, they took off looking for it. The Leopoldville was left to drift into a minefield.

LeMay could hear the panic-struck Belgian crew talking about getting off. They were only five miles from the coast of France, and a distress signal was sent, but it had been relayed through England. The radios being used in France were on a different frequency than the Leopoldville's.

With no indication that help was on the way, the 200-strong crew lowered the lifeboats and climbed in. Without orders from their captain, they abandoned ship, leaving the American troops on board to find their own way to safety.

Some tried to grab lifeboats, but they were tied up out of reach. Unlike the crew, the soldiers didn't know how to get them down.

One of the British escort ships, the H.M.S. Brilliant, came back to the sinking Leopoldville and men began to jump onto the destroyer's decks. But with waves rolling in and the Leopoldville listing, the drop was up to 30 feet. Some men died hitting the deck of the destroyer. Others fell between the two ships.

When it couldn't hold any more men - it was estimated the destroyer took on 700 troops - the Brilliant headed back to Cherbourg, France.

With the ship taking on water rapidly, LeMay decided to jump. He knew if he stayed on board he'd go down with the ship; he knew if he didn't get far enough away from it in the water, he'd be sucked down.

In his letter, LeMay describes hitting the icy water and swimming about a hundred yards before pausing to look at the ship. He saw the Leopoldville's decks jammed with hundreds of men, many of them praying, all of them terrified.

As he was floating in the water, LeMay was struck on the back of the head and pushed under. A rescue boat plowing through the water had hit him.

He managed to roll away from it and get back above the surface, but other men were killed. It was so dark that, as the rescue ships arrived, they couldn't see the soldiers in the water and crushed them.

In his letter, LeMay describes grabbing on to a rope trailing from the boat and then being knocked unconscious by a wave that threw him against the side.

He never knew how he managed to get on board. When he woke up, LeMay was in a French hospital, his legs numb from the freezing water.

For his ordeal, LeMay was awarded the Purple Heart. He was also instructed not to tell anyone what had happened.

LeMay did mention the incident to his wife and children in later years, but only in bits and pieces. When historians contacted him to find out more about the night, LeMay refused to talk.

"He said he didn't want anyone to make money from the tragedy," said Jeanne LeMay.

Secret, by request

It's only been in recent years that historians could examine the incident at all. When the British Admiralty declassified documents related to the sinking of the Leopoldville in 1996, what had been rumor for 50 years became reality.

Relatives found out not only that their loved ones had died in a shipwreck but also how much of the incident, including investigations, had been mishandled.

"It was kept secret at the request of our allies," said Jack Randles, a survivor from Maryland. "And I think the feeling was, we didn't want to embarrass them, especially at the time when their help was so important."

Both the Belgians and the British had much to be embarrassed about. The Belgians abandoned their ship, and the British mishandled messages sent from Cherbourg, France, that the Leopoldville was sinking, delaying rescue missions.

But the Americans weren't blameless. The rescue effort was further delayed because U.S. troops in Cherbourg had been given the night off for Christmas. It took close to two hours to rouse enough men to mount rescue missions.

Since information has been released on the Leopoldville, survivors have come forward to share their stories. In a 2001 History Channel documentary, Cover-Up: The Sinking of the S.S. Leopoldville, many spoke about it for the first time.

Several petitioned the government for a memorial to those who died, which was unveiled in Fort Benning, Ga., in 2002. They started an organization for the families of those who died, the Leopoldville Memorial Association.

Survivors now meet with family members twice a year at conventions to piece together details of what happened and to spread awareness.

LeMay watched the History Channel film. He recognized the names of four of the men interviewed and learned for the first time the name of the hospital where he was taken in France.

But he spoke no more to his family about the Leopoldville than he had all along.

"It was just something he wanted to keep in his past," said Annette Alley, his daughter. "He didn't want to glorify it."

©Concord Monitor and New Hampshire "