You’ve heard about Pearl Harbor, where 2,403 American servicemen – including 1,177 aboard the USS Arizona alone – perished on Dec. 7, 1941. You may even have heard of Exercise Tiger off the British coast, in which at least 749 Americans were killed while simply training for D-Day.
But have you heard about what happened to the Rohna? Few have. On Nov. 26, 1943, HMT Rohna – HMT for His Majesty’s Transport – was attacked by German aircraft in the Mediterranean off North Africa. A total of 1,138 men were killed aboard the British vessel, and 1,015 of them were American servicemen. It would be a long time before any of their loved ones on the home front learned what had happened – if they ever did.
At noon on Nov. 14, the South Carolina Confederate Relic Room and Military Museum will present a film that tells the Rohna’s story, “ROHNA CLASSIFIED.” The showing, free and open to the public, is another installment in the Relic Room’s Noon Debrief series of programs.
This will be the first Noon Debrief since May 2024 to be presented in the Relic Room itself, in the museum’s Education Room. Due to renovations, the room was unavailable during that time, which caused the Noon Debriefs to go on the road to local public libraries, to which the Relic Room is very grateful. The Noon Debriefs will continue to provide such off-site programs going forward, alternating with presentations at the museum itself.
Another remarkable thing about this program is that it will be a bit longer than the usual 60 minutes. The runtime of the film is 58 minutes, and time will be allowed for questions, to be answered by Fritz Hamer, the Relic Room’s former curator of history.
While the Rohna story is little-known among the general public, some Noon Debrief regulars have heard it before. It was the subject of one of several presentations by Catherine Ladnier in recent years. And it has personal relevance here in the Palmetto State: Six South Carolinians perished in the sinking of the Rohna, and at least five survived. One of those killed was the father of the late S.C. Rep. James “Jimmy” Neal of Kershaw.
But even those who attended that program on Dec. 16, 2022, will learn more from this film. As a press release provided by the makers of “ROHNA CLASSIFIED” tells it:
A WWII transport ship equipped with non-functioning lifeboats and inadequate lifebelts was sunk by one of the first radio-guided missiles ever used in war. 1,015 U.S. soldiers were killed in the attack that remains the greatest loss of life at sea in the history of any U.S. war. Uncovered classified documents reveal that neglect and oversight contributed to the large number of casualties. The government deflected responsibility by declaring the disaster classified indefinitely while ordering all survivors to remain silent. The casualty families were stonewalled and most of them went to their own graves never knowing what happened; their boys just never came home.
You can see a preview of the film here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zzm51PHWbBM
Come join us, finally back home in the Education Room, at noon on Nov. 14.
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