HMT Rohna

History
UK
Name: Rohna
Namesake: Rohna, Punjab
Owner: British India SN Co
Operator: British India SN Co
Port of registry: United Kingdom London
Builder: Hawthorn Leslie, Hebburn, England
Yard number: 542
Launched: 24 August 1926
Completed: 5 November 1926
Commissioned: 15 March 1941
Identification:
Fate: Sunk by air attack 26 November 1943
General characteristics
Tonnage:
  • 8,602 GRT
  • tonnage under deck 6,681
  • 4,759 NRT
  • 9,400 LT DWT
Length: 461.4 ft (140.6 m)
Beam: 61.8 ft (18.8 m)
Draught: 33 ft 0 in (10.06 m)
Depth: 29.9 ft (9.1 m)
Decks: 3
Installed power:
Propulsion:
Speed:
  • 14.3 knots (26.5 km/h) top speed
  • 12.5 knots (23.2 km/h) cruising speed
Capacity:
  • 281 First Class
  • 33 Second Class
  • 100 Third Class
  • 5,064 deck passengers,
  • reduced in 1931 to 3,851
Crew:
  • 195 (peacetime)
  • 200 crew + 12 DEMS gunners (as troop ship)
Sensors and
processing systems:		 direction finding equipment
Armament:
Notes: sister ship: Rajula

HMT Rohna was a British India Steam Navigation Company passenger and cargo liner that was built on Tyneside in 1926 as SS Rhona and requisitioned as a troop ship in 1940. ("HMT" stands for His Majesty's Transport.) Rohna was sunk in the Mediterranean in November 1943 by a Henschel Hs 293 guided glide bomb launched by a Luftwaffe aircraft. More than 1,100 people were killed, most of whom were US troops.

Building

In 1925 British India Line ordered two new ships for its Madras – Nagapatam – Singapore service. They were sister ships but were built by different shipyards and had different engines. Hawthorn Leslie and Company built Rohna at its shipyard at Hebburn on Tyneside. Barclay, Curle and Company built Rajula in Glasgow on Clydeside. Both ships were launched and completed in 1926.

Rohna was launched on 24 August 1926 and completed on 5 November. She was named after a village in Sonipat, Punjab, India.[1] She had 15 corrugated furnaces that heated five single-ended boilers with a combined heating surface of 14,080 square feet (1,308 m2). These fed steam at 215 lbf/in2 to two four-cylinder quadruple expansion steam engines, developing a total of 984 NHP.[2] Each engine drove one of the ship's twin screws, giving Rohna 984 NHP or 5,000 ihp.[1] She achieved 14.3 knots (26.5 km/h) on her sea trials and had a cruising speed of 12.5 knots (23.2 km/h).[3]

By 1934 Rohna carried wireless direction finding equipment.[4]

Civilian service

Instead of taking up her Madras – Nagapatam – Singapore route immediately, Rohna spent her first six months of service taking military reinforcements to Shanghai. As a result, she did not start her intended service until June 1927.[1]

Cyclone in Madras

On 31 October 1927 Rohna was moored to a buoy in Madras Harbour in India when a weather signal and falling air pressure warned of the approach of a tropical cyclone. Her Master, EG Carré, had her starboard anchor laid out with 90 fathoms (160 m) of cable, and got the engineers to raise steam so that her main engines could be started if needed.[5]

By 0700 hrs on 1 November a heavy swell was running within the harbour, at times lifting the four-ton mooring buoy completely out of the water. By 1100 hrs there was also heavy rain and Rohna's bridge ordered the engines to "stand by".[5] Ten minutes later the anchor cable parted, shaking the ship. She was now dragging her port anchor, which Captain Carré therefore decided to have hauled in.[6]

Weighing anchor would take about 20 minutes, so in the meantime Carré had Rohna got underway to avoid being run onto the harbour breakwater. Other ships were moored in the harbour, and Carré's helmsman had to steer through a narrow space between two of them in a very heavy sea.[6] Eventually Rohna was able to make for the harbour mouth and put to sea and head 20 miles south to where the storm was less severe. Next day the cyclone had passed and Rohna returned to port.[7]

Deck passengers

When new, Rohna was certified to carry 5,064 deck passengers. In 1931 new regulations called the Simla Rules (superseded in 1948 by the SOLAS Convention) reduced this to 3,851, but this was still more than any other UK-registered ship.[1]

War service

When the UK entered the Second World War in September 1939 Rohna was in the Indian Ocean. Apart from a voyage from Karachi to Suez with Convoy K 4, Rohna operated unescorted between Rangoon and Madras until late November. On 10 December she left Bombay for the Mediterranean, passing through the Suez Canal on 20–21 December and reaching Marseille on 26 December. From 3 January 1941 until 10 March she operated unescorted between Marseille and Port of Haifa in Mandatory Palestine, at first in convoys but after 29 January independently.[8]

On 15 March 1940 Rohna returned through the Suez Canal to the Indian Ocean, where she operated unescorted between Bombay, Rangoon and Colombo until June. In may she was requisitioned as a troop ship[1] and on 6 June she left Bombay for Durban. She then ran between Durban, Mombasa and Dar es Salaam until 28 July, when she left Mombasa for Bombay.[8]

Rohna took troops from Bombay to Suez in August 1940 in Convoy BN 3 and from Bombay to Port Sudan in September/October 1940 in Convoy BN 6. She made further trips from Bombay to Suez in November 1940 in Convoy BN 8A, from Colombo to Suez in February 1941 in Convoy US 8/1 and from Bombay to Singapore in March 1941 in Convoy BM 4. The day after the Iraqi coup d'état in April 1941 Rohna was ordered to Karachi, whence she took some of the first elements of Iraqforce to Basra in Convoy BP 2. During the Anglo-Iraqi War in May the ship made a second trip from Karachi to Basra in Convoy BP 5. After the Allied victory in Iraq at the end of May she spent the rest of the year running between Basra and Bombay, each time going to Basra in a BP-series convoys and returning independently.[8]

On 8 December 1941 Japan invaded Malaya. A month later Rohna left Bombay for Singapore in Convoy BM 10, arriving on 25 January 1942. She left on 28 January in Convoy NB 1, a fortnight before Singapore was surrendered to Japan. From March 1942 Rohna spent a year criss-crossing the Indian Ocean between Bombay, Karachi, Colombo, Basra, Aden, Suez, Khorramshahr, Bandar Abbas, Bahrain and Âbâdân; sometimes in convoys but much of the time unescorted. In March 1943 she sailed from Bombay in Convoy BA 40 to Aden and then independently to Suez, where she passed through the canal on 6–7 April.[8]

For the remainder of her career Rohna supported the North African Campaign, the Allied invasion of Sicily and the Allied invasion of Italy. Until the beginning of July she ran independently between Alexandria, Tripoli and Sfax. From then on she sailed mostly in convoys, working between Alexandria, Malta, Tripoli, Augusta, Port Said, Bizerta and Oran.[8]

Loss

Approximate position of Rohna's wreck off the coast of Algeria

At 1230 hrs on 25 November 1943 Rohna and four other troop ships left Oran in French Algeria.[1] At sea three hours later they joined Convoy KMF 26 which was passing on its way from Britain to Alexandria.[3][9]

About 1630 hrs the next day off Bougie the convoy was attacked by about 30 Luftwaffe Heinkel 177 bombers escorted by Junkers Ju 88 aircraft, followed by between six and nine torpedo bombers. At the time the convoy had a limited air escort of four land-based Free French Air Force Spitfires. Later in the course of the attack they were relieved by RAF Spitfires.[3]

Henschel Hs 293 radio-guided glide bomb

The He-177s carried Henschel Hs 293 radio-guided glide bombs, an estimated 60 of which they launched at the convoy. The convoy's combined anti-aircraft fire seems to have impeded most of the attackers' attempts to guide their glide bombs onto their targets. Rohna's DEMS gunners contributed with her machine guns, Oerlikon autocannons and about 20 rounds from her 12-pounder gun. The convoy shot down at least two aircraft and damaged several others.[3]

Rohna was the only casualty. About 1715 or 1725 hrs a He-177 piloted by Hans Dochtermann released a glide bomb that hit Rohna on her port side, at the after end of her engine room and Number Six troop deck. Men poured on deck, many of them badly wounded.[3]

The impact was about 15 feet (5 m) above the water line but it flooded the engine room, knocked out all electrical equipment including her pumps, and set the ship ablaze. The impact demolished the Number Four bulkhead. It also destroyed six of her 22 lifeboats and forced out the plates of her hull so that none of her surviving port boats could be lowered past them. Troops cut the falls of some of the boats, causing them to fall in the sea and be swamped. Only eight boats were launched; they became overloaded with troops and most became waterlogged or capsized. The Number One Deck Serang, Bhowan Meetha, acted professionally to help the Chief Officer to launch the boats. Other members of the lascar crew, however, launched the two aft lifeboats and abandoned ship without remaining to help to launch the other boats.[1] However, with Number Four Hold afire and all communications severed, the crewmen aft had lost contact with the bridge and had no way to reach the boat deck to help with the other boats. They disobeyed orders, but were acting on their own.[3]

The minesweeper USS Pioneer rescued 602 survivors
The destroyer HMS Atherstone provided anti-aircraft cover and then rescued about 70 survivors

As Rohna listed 12 degrees to starboard, her crew launched most of her 101 liferafts. By 1750 hrs only a few rafts remained so they threw took the hatch boards from Number Three Hold and threw them overboard too. By now Number Four Hold, just aft of the engine room, was on fire. The Auk-class minesweeper USS Pioneer and cargo ship Clan Campbell fell behind the convoy to rescue survivors, protected by the Hunt-class destroyer HMS Atherstone which made a smokescreen and gave anti-aircraft cover. Clan Campbell had a high freeboard so she lowered a cargo net for survivors to use as a scramble net. However, the climb was about 30 feet (9 m) from the sea to the deck, which was very difficult for many of the exhausted survivors. The wind was only Force 4, but there was a 15-to-20-foot (5 to 6 m) swell that prevented the rescue ships from launching their own boats.[3]

The Master, Captain TJ Murphy, was among the last personnel left aboard, along with his Chief, Second and Third Officers, Senior Medical Officer and four US soldiers. This group remained on the foredeck for about half an hour after all the other surviving soldiers and crew had abandoned ship. About 90 minutes after the missile hit the ship there was a rending noise, probably from the collapse of a bulkhead aft. Clouds of smoke came from Number Three Hold and the ship settled by the stern. The group threw the last four rafts overboard and abandoned ship.[3]

After night fell, Atherstone switched from anti-aircraft cover to rescuing survivors and the tug Mindful arrived from Bougie and joined the operation. The rescue continued until 0215 hrs on 27 November. 819 survivors were taken to Philippeville: 602 on Pioneer, about 110 on Clan Campbell and about 70 on Atherstone.[3]

1,138 men were killed, including 1,015 US personnel. The attack is the largest loss of US troops at sea due to enemy action in a single incident. A further 35 US troops of the 2,000 originally embarked later died of wounds. As well as the troops, five of Rohna's officers and 117 of her 195 crew were killed, along with one of her 12 DEMS gunners and one hospital orderly. USS Pioneer rescued 606 survivors.[10]

Details of the loss were revealed slowly over time. By February 1944 the US Government had acknowledged that more than 1,000 soldiers had been lost in the sinking of an unnamed troopship in European waters, but it hinted that a submarine was responsible. By June 1945 the US Government had released accurate casualty figures, the ship had been identified as Rohna, and the cause of the sinking had been identified as German bombers, but did not mention the fact that a guided bomb was used. In 1948 a history of British India Line in the Second World War was published, stating "the missile was one of the new glider bombs guided by wireless".[11] The US Government released the full story only in 1967 after the passing of the Freedom of Information Act.

Monuments

Members of Rohna's crew who were killed are commemorated in the Second World War section of the Merchant Navy War Memorial at Tower Hill in London. Her lascar seamen are commemorated in the Commonwealth War Graves Commission monuments at Chittagong and Mumbai. A monument to the US troops who were killed was unveiled at Fort Mitchell National Cemetery in Seale, Alabama in 1996.[12] In 1962, the traffic median of the Esplanade[13] in Bronx, New York, at the corner of Astor Avenue, was named in memory of Private Sidney Weissman, a local resident killed in the sinking of the Rohna.[14]

Controversy

In 1998 Dr James G. Bennett, who lost a brother in the sinking, published a book, The Rohna Disaster, through the self-publishing service Xlibris. In it he alleges that the heavy loss of life was due to the incompetence and cowardice of the Rohna's lascar crew and faulty safety procedures and equipment aboard.[3]

In 2002 the History Channel released an episode of its History Undercover series, The Rohna Disaster: WWII's Secret Tragedy, that was based on Bennett's book and repeated his allegations. Wartime reports by the Lieutenant-Colonel in command of the US troops aboard, and by Rohna's Second Officer and other survivors, contradict many aspects of Bennett's allegations.[3]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Milligan, David. "The Troopships 1923 to End". merchantnavyofficers.com. Retrieved 6 August 2014.
  2. ↑ Lloyd's Register, Steamers & Motorships (PDF). London: Lloyd's Register. 1933. Retrieved 5 August 2014.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Wills, J.E.; Frolich, Alexander. "Rohna, (British India Steam Navigation Co Ltd), 1926–1943". merchantnavyofficers.com. Retrieved 8 December 2010.
  4. ↑ Lloyd's Register, Steamers & Motorships (PDF). London: Lloyd's Register. 1934. Retrieved 5 August 2014.
  5. 1 2 Carré 1936, p. 58.
  6. 1 2 Carré 1936, p. 61.
  7. ↑ Carré 1936, p. 62.
  8. 1 2 3 4 5 Hague, Arnold. "Rohna". Ship Movements. Don Kindell, ConvoyWeb. Retrieved 7 August 2014.
  9. ↑ Hague, Arnold. "Convoy KMF.26". KMF Convoy Series. Don Kindell, ConvoyWeb. Retrieved 7 August 2014.
  10. ↑ Wise & Baron 2003, pp. 25, 31, 101
  11. ↑ Saunders 1948
  12. ↑ Rohna The Memorial rohnasurvivors.org accessed 2015-08-14
  13. ↑ "New York, Westchester and Boston Railroad Part 1". Forgotten New York. Retrieved 9 January 2016.
  14. ↑ "New York City Council Local Law 67 of 1962" (PDF).

Sources

Further reading

External links

Coordinates: 37°1′12″N 5°12′6″E / 37.02000°N 5.20167°E / 37.02000; 5.20167

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