The HMT Rohna Tragedy and Private H. W. Bly, Royal Army Medical Corps

War is complex and cruel; no one really wins. Political decisions at the highest level inevitably have profound effects on a country's citizens, effects that linger through subsequent generations. Those who have served their country rarely speak of their ordeals, and the families of casualties tend to suffer in silence - especially if they have been denied information about what happened.

My uncle, Private Henry William Bly, was born in 1916 in East Ham, London, the second of six children. Named after his father, he was known as "Sonny". He was an amateur actor but was expected to follow his father's trade as a boiler-maker. Then WWII intervened. The 1939 United Kingdom register noted, next to his name, that he had taken a St Johns Ambulance course. Sonny was always helping others, so perhaps he was destined to join the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC). His death certificate stated merely that he was "presumed killed in enemy action, at sea" on Nov. 26, 1943.

His story was revealed through serendipitous discoveries. In early 2020, I began working with an American documentary (www.rohnaclassified.com, due for release in mid-2024). Rohna's sinking marked the worst US war-time disaster at sea, yet the film trailers made scant reference to the British men on board that fateful day. I delved into British National Archives documents to tackle gaps in the film team's research on the UK troops. My first discovery was War Office file 361-474, declassified only in 2007, mentioning casualties off Algeria in Nov. 1943 - referring indeed to the Rohna and Private Bly. The producer urged me to dig further and gave me email addresses of British families who had contacted him about the film; also, my search tools discovered descendants of two more men mentioned in that file. All those with whom I corresponded willingly showed me documents, photos, and letters that had been kept in their family for eight decades.

The SS Rohna was built in 1926 for the British India Steam Navigation Company as a luxury vessel designed to carry about 100 passengers and crew. It plied the seas between Bombay and London, via the Suez Canal and the Mediterranean. When World War II broke out, it became the HMT Rohna, its voyages coordinated by the Ministry of War Transport and managed by British Merchant Navy and Indian Merchant Navy crew, under an Australian captain.

The relevant page of the"movement card" for the Rohna, cross-referenced with correspondence from the surviving British Army major in charge of troops on the Rohna, confirm their role in the Sicily landings in July 1943. Thus, I discovered that Sonny and his Army team had participated in this historic event. Then they waited in Oran, Algeria for their next mission, as a new Indian crew arrived. In a letter to his parents in Oct. 1943, Sonny recounted evenings with the British Merchant Navy's Chief Engineer, chatting about boilermakers that his Dad had also known. One of the radio engineers had a radiogram, and both men wrote home about listening to music together. And Sonny expressed his hope to be home for Christmas"¦

An important voyage was imminent. There is no indication of the ship's condition when a handful of Royal Navy sailors and gunners joined the Rohna, and early on Nov. 25, 1943 they met up with their convoy, the KMF26 comprising 24 Allied ships and 10 destroyers. The Rohna embarked 1,988 US troops en route to Bombay, under the"CBI Initiative" to develop a communications network across China, Burma and India. The soldiers complained as they were crammed into the ship,"double-bunked" according to US practice. Lifeboat drills were conducted so that troops knew to which boat they were assigned, but the Indian crew were supposed to launch them in an emergency. Prior to departure, Sonny arranged to send his parents and sister Dora, a WAAF, a mimeographed card - fortunately approved by the censor - with "Christmas Greetings from the Mediterranean".

Sadly, Sonny would lose his life the next day. A squadron of about 30 Heinkel 177 planes from the Luftwaffe were lying in wait for the convoy around 4:20 p.m. Nov. 26, aiming bombs at several ships. The gunners managed to repel them so minimal damage ensued; then the planes disappeared. The men gave a sigh of relief, but a smaller group returned an hour later. Two of them circled and aimed. One launched its glider bomb, the Henschel Hs 293, for its first-ever successful hit - on the Rohna, in the"coffin position" port-side behind the lead ship. The initial impact knocked out communications. The blast tore into the lower decks where troops had few means to reach their boat stations. Fire broke out, and many succumbed to horrific injuries.

Chaos reigned. According to eyewitnesses, the bomb had damaged some lifeboats but few of those remaining were in working order. A small number of Indian crew found one boat that was still functional and rescued themselves, while most others could not. Efforts to dislodge more lifeboats from their bearings led to further injuries and deaths. The desperate men struggled with hatches, life rafts, and whatever they could throw overboard to help stay afloat in the oil-slicked waters.

The Rohna sank within 90 minutes. The Captain, many of the Merchant Navy, the US Lieutenant Colonel and fewer than half of his troops escaped death. Most Royal Navy seamen and gunners were lost. A handful of ships in the convoy plucked men out of the water, but the effort was over-whelming. An Admiralty record revealed a running list as British sailors were pulled out of the sea, and names were later compared with those of survivors taken to Allied camps in Bougie and Philippeville.

War Office and Admiralty reports recount how the eight medics survived the bombing and all worked valiantly under horrendous conditions of fire and steam, delivering the wounded to the upper deck. By the time the"abandon ship" order was called out, the men had lost sight of their Senior Medical Officer and the Lieutenant Adjutant, who they believed did not have his lifejacket; both perished. The sole RAMC survivor was an Army sergeant, whose handwritten account told how he followed Sonny by the last escape route - down the ropes into the choppy seas. The next page is missing from the file.

Sonny joined hundreds of bodies that RAF planes would see floating in the area for days. In total, 31 British servicemen, 108 Indian crew, 1,015 American troops, and three Red Cross workers were lost. Later investigation determined that not only the state of the lifeboats, but also the inflatable lifebelts assigned to the Americans had contributed to significant losses because the men drowned upside down.

Decades of bureaucratic silence followed, mandated by both the US and British administrations. In February 1944, the American Bureau of Public Relations begged the UK Admiral of the Fleet (Mediterranean) John Cunningham to allow them to give the US families limited information about the incident, but this request was officially denied multiple times. Notices of men missing in action were still pending in February 1944 and then notifications of death took until April, longer than regulation time, with minimal details available to the next of kin. Related files in the UK were classified secret - some marked to remain closed to the public until April 2044.

Why is the Rohna incident barely known in WWII research in Britain, not even in key references about Prime Minister Churchill or President Roosevelt? Maybe the timing of the sinking played a role, occurring the same week that the Allied leaders met with Chiang Kai-shek in Cairo to plan the CBI, and with Stalin in Tehran, to lay groundwork for Operation Overlord, i.e. D-Day. Such critical war planning required utter secrecy.

American survivors were told that they would be court-martialed if they ever spoke of the Rohna attack, so they obeyed for 50 years"¦ until one veteran told his story to the US press in 1993. A documentary on the US History Channel then brought the tale to light, and Rohna veterans formed a survivors' association (www.trmsa.com). Even the grandson of the German pilot, Hans Dochtermann who launched the bomb, became a member when his grandfather sent him to ask them for forgiveness. Eventually the US government recognised the tragedy of the Rohna. Testimonials of survivors videotaped in 1996 feature in the documentary. In contrast, British survivors never revealed their ordeal, not even to their closest family. Some next of kin were unaware of a link to the Rohna until I contacted them. Relevant documents remain officially classified or are difficult to find. A sampling of military service records (casualties and survivors) has had references to their time on the Rohna withheld under the Freedom of Information Act, even in late 2023.

Ironically, the inventor of the German Hs-293 radio-guided missile, Herbert Wagner, fared much better than the men on the Rohna. Like Wernher von Braun, he was captured by the Allies and whisked off to the United States to continue his efforts in developing weapons of war.

I believe it would have eased my family's pain to know that my uncle and his fellow soldiers had survived the bomb hit and acted so heroically, leaving the ship only when their chances were limited - and only one of that group escaped. Perhaps by recounting this story, we may find other"Rohna descendants" and gain the attention of the British public - including WWII researchers - to further explore this hidden tragedy.