08-04-2000
SYRACUSE – More than 1,000 U.S. servicemen died Nov. 26, 1943, when the HMT Rohna troopship was sunk in the Mediterranean.
There were more than 900 survivors.
“I’m going to say, the ones I know, there are possibly 100 (survivors still alive). That’s only a guess,” said Wayne L. Coy, 76, Syracuse-Webster Road, Syracuse. He is one of the few remaining survivors of the Rohna.
Yet, to this day, neither the survivors nor their families have received official recognition. Most of the families of the casualties have not even been told the fate of their loved ones.
Remaining survivors and families are now asking that those who died more than 50 years ago receive the posthumous award of the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star. For the survivors of the sinking, living and deceased, no less than the Bronze Star is being sought; the Purple Heart for those where medically justified.
“It has since been decided,” said Coy, “that it was the biggest loss of Americans in World War II.”
According to Coy, “The main reason it (wasn’t) declassified is because we were hit by a secret weapon at the time. ... When it was declassified, it was dropped in red tape.”
The weapon that sank the ship was the second Henschel 293 bomb dropped by a German aircraft, flown by Major Dochtermann. The first one was a dud, Coy said. At 20 feet long and 15 feet wide, the bomb was radio-controlled.
“The reason there’s never been a battle ribbon given out was because we were ... assigned to whoever needed it and we were earmarked to go on to the Far East, so we were never assigned to an outfit in this theater, and so there’s no one to give us a battle star or any other kind of citation,” Coy said.
Coy had been in the service for approximately three months when the bomb hit the ship. At 20 years old, he was one of the youngest private first classmen on the ship.
When the attack happened, Coy said, he and many others went below decks. “We just waited to be hit,” he said. “Everything went dead.” The ship had been hit “right in the middle, above the water line.” By the time he jumped off the ship into the water, the ship was at a 30-degree angle.
“It happened in the Mediterranean. Oran is the city we left from. The battle was probably along Algiers,” he said.
“Everybody was issued a life vest. I never thought I’d see one (again), but they had one at the 50th reunion.” The life jackets were gas filled, he said.
“The water was rough – 25-foot waves. ... It was at dusk. A bunch of us got together,” he said.
More than 600 of the men boarded the USS Pioneer, while other men boarded the British ships Atherstone, Clan Campbell and Mindful. Coy was on the Pioneer, a 125-foot mine sweeper.
Coy said, “(It) picked up 600-plus survivors. They were afraid of that ship capsizing because so many people were aboard.”
After the Rohna sank and men began boarding other ships, Coy saved the life of an officer from New York, “Skip” Sullivan.
Sullivan was in the water and “he was having trouble, mainly with the waves,” Coy said. Coy helped Sullivan stay afloat and helped get him up the ropes of the USS Pioneer. Sullivan was approximately 36; Wayne was 20.
They were taken to Phillipeville and then went from there by rail to Bizerte. “At the time, that was the worst bombed place there was,” Coy said.
“Once we got aboard the next ship, we went on to the Suez Canal ... and landed in Bombay,” he said.
Coy’s wife, Betty, 74, said, “The government owes all the dead and the living a month’s pay. They didn’t get a month’s pay after it happened.”
“All records were wiped out and they had to be redone,” said Coy.
A high school friend of Coy’s, Bill Wagoner of Warsaw, who was a pilot in Coy’s outfit, went home from the war ahead of Coy. “He said, ‘Anything you want me to take home, I’ll take home for you.’ So I wrote my story about the shipwreck and everything else and (told it) to my mother and dad. He carried it home in the bell of his trumpet. He never took it out of that bell until he was at my mom and dad’s house,” Coy said.
Betty Coy added, “Your mail was all censored and everything. You couldn’t get anything by.”
Coy still has the letter. He also has newspaper clippings, pictures and books on the sinking of the Rohna. “I have quite a collection,” he said.
Coy does have a Purple Heart. After the remaining men from the Rohna were transferred to other outfits, the outfit Coy went to was awarded Purple Hearts. “But only a few (of the Rohna survivors) ended up (with Purple Hearts). The rest got nothing.”
Betty Coy said the effort to get Purple Hearts and battle stars for the men of Rohna “is nationwide. I don’t know if they’ll get anything accomplished, but they’re going full force with it, I guess.”
For more information about how you can help the Rohna survivors get recognized, contact: Robert M. Brewer, Col., USAF Ret., president, 209-957-7286, or e-mail rmbrewer@jps.net; James G. Bennett, 206-341-8499; or write to The Rohna Survivors Memorial Association, 4258 Heron Lakes Drive, Stockton, Calif. 95219-1766.
The Rohna Web site is at www.whidbey.net/rohna/rohna.html