Forgotten Tragedy: The Sinking of HMT Rohna

Forgotten Tragedy: The Sinking of HMT Rohna by Jackson, Carlton. hardcover edition. ISBN: 9781557504029.

More than one thousand American soldiers were killed on 26 November 1943 when the British troopship Rohna was hit by a German guided bomb in the Mediterranean - the greatest single loss of American lives at sea in World War II and one of the worst tragedies in maritime history. At the time, the disaster was kept secret for security purposes, but even after the war little information was given out. Now Carlton Jackson tells the story in full for the first time. To accurately reconstruct this little-known tragedy, Jackson studied official Allied and German reports and countless documents in archives here and abroad, as well as tracking down survivors and the Luftwaffe pilot involved. He gives a detailed account of the air attack on the Rohna, part of a convoy headed east through the Mediterranean. The only ship to take a direct hit, the Rohna sank quickly, killing 1,149 people. Many of those who managed to survive the initial explosion and avoid German strafing attacks succumbed to the sea. A lucky few were rescued, their lives forever changed by the dramatic chain of events so ably chronicled in this book. Jacksons mesmerizing account of the attack and rescue and the survivors recovery makes a decided contribution to World War II literature and to the history of the sea.