Telling secret eases vet's mind (kept a secret for nearly 60 years)

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.omaha.com/index.php?u_page=1100&u_sid=10608990

Published Monday April 13, 2009
Telling secret eases vet's mind

ALAMOGORDO, N.M. (AP) - James Wheeler kept a secret for nearly 60 years.

It wasn't the type of secret people keep to protect themselves from ridicule. Far from it, in fact.



He was instructed by his superior officers in the U.S. Army to keep it. His parents never knew, and he never told his wife of 35 years, Ruth Ann Wheeler, who died in 1992.

Wheeler, of High Rolls, N.M., is a 90-year-old World War II veteran who was part of what many historians have called the largest loss of U.S. troops at sea.

More than 1,000 U.S. troops died, yet not many Americans know about it. You won't find one word about it in history books. Alamogordo High School's two junior U.S. history classes were fortunate to hear Wheeler finally talk about it.

Wheeler was a member of the Nebraska National Guard and an infantryman aboard the British transport ship HMT Rohna when it was attacked Nov. 26, 1943, by German bombers as it traveled through the Mediterranean Sea. The ship was part of a convoy en route to the China-Burma-India theater of the war.

"It was the day after Thanksgiving," Wheeler said. "I remember that."


James Wheeler, 90, talks with students in a U.S. history class at Alamogordo High School in Alamogordo, N.M.

FULL story at link.

[Heidi]

1. This is fascinating!

:kick:

[annabanana]

2. How much else don't we know about WWII?

We are all still pawns in someone else's game.

[Fire1]

10. How much don't we know about alot of things. But OH NO!!!

You're a freakin 'conspiracy theorists' with paranoid tendencies.:eyes:

[malaise]

3. Thanks for this

I'm betting that one day we'll hear what happened when the weapons depot was blown up in Iraq

[Sal Minella]

7. The Falcon Depot ammo dump explosion in which no one was injured?

I had that on Google Alert for a long time and not one article ever surfaced -- not one.

[Captain Hilts]

4. A DUer lost his grandfather on this ship. nt

[Historic NY]

5. Interesting but the NAZI weapon has been profiled many times over the years.

http://www.walter-rockets.i12.com/missiles/hs293b.htm

Its like the pre-D-Day training when we lost so many men.

[customerserviceguy]

6. What possible motive

could a succession of eleven Presidents since the end of the war have had for keeping this a secret? I seem to remember various members of the Carter Administration digging up old secrets that were no longer relevant, why would they want to keep this one buried?

[ellie]

8. My uncle

was in China-Burma-India as part of Merrill's Marauders.

[Call Me Wesley]

9. Great read!

thank you for sharing this!

[pacalo]

11. What was the point in keeping this a secret?

[Xithras]

13. After the war? None

During the war, major losses were often downplayed or hidden to keep morale up, and to avoid giving away operational information to the enemy. It was also common practice to delay releasing bad news until there was really good news to go along with it. I remember seeing one example of this where a troop ship was lost in the Pacific in WW2. My grandfather still had a copy of the paper showing where we had taken some Japanese held island. That article took up half the homepage. The story about the lost troop ship was six lines long and tucked into the bottom corner of the page.

After the war, nobody wanted to hear about it. Everyone knew people who had died, so people just didn't talk about it. This guy wasn't ordered to keep his mouth shut after the war, he was told to keep his mouth shut during the war. Like many WW2 vets, he simply chose to not talk about it afterward.

The sinking of the Rohna is no secret to historians, and it's well known as not only the largest-ever loss of troops at sea, but also as the first troop ship to ever be struck by a guided missile in combat (the Germans had used them before, but never against anything as big or crowded as a troop carrier).

[pacalo]

17. What struck me was that he never told his wife about it.

I know a lot of men, particularly my husband, are vague & not very detaily, but if my husband had been through something like this I'd hope he'd have told me about it. The fact that he survived is a miracle, but then, the memory of his friends' violent deaths must have troubled him terribly through the years.

Thanks for such a thoughtful reply, Xithras.

[Xithras]

14. dupe

triple post

[Xithras]

15. dupe

triple post

[KharmaTrain]

20. It Took My Father Over 50 Yeras To Talk About It...

He and his buddies would be proud of their service, talked about where they served, but rarely did they ever talk about what they saw or participated in. My father was in a medical unit following the Second Army across France and into Germany. He would avoid reunions and it wasn't until his final years that he would talk about what he encountered. For example, he "stitched" up the casulties of the Battle of the Bulge...working in the OR for nearly 36 hours non-stop. Or his "tour" of a recently liberated Consentration camp. Being Jewish, the shock was one that he didn't even admit to until those final years as well...enough distance and shock had passed, but the emotion was always there.

In short...war is hell. It exposes young men and women to some of the most savage behavior in the most forbidding places. In the 80's, I worked with a former Green Beret in Vietnam...it wasn't until we had worked together for over 5 years and over several rounds of drinks did he start to open up about his own experience.

I can't even fathom what this experience is like...but I can understand why those who were witness to its attrocities would prefer to shut it away than relive it.

[Soylent Brice]

12. figures we would use nazi technology to perfect our own... predator drones... ahem.

[TorchTheWitch]

16. It was in my history books

This article is really misleading. During the war it wasn't even kept secret, but it was severely toned down. Claiming it wasn't ever mentioned in history books is BS. Wheeler kept this a secret all this time because he felt like he should, not because he had to, and that is even said right in the article. I learned about the tragedy of the Rhona and many other incidents during WWII when I was in school. What I didn't learn anything about in school or even heard mention of was Vietnam.

[Thothmes]

19. Have to agree

I had read about the incident in the mid 60s in a couple of books about the war. He kept it secret for his own personal reasons, not governmental ones.

[HamdenRice]

18. My father hated the British Navy because of something he saw during WWII

He used to tell a story about being on a troop transport ship. He left the US and went first to Africa, then into the Mediterranean bound for Italy.

The transport ships were accompanied by British destroyers. When some German subs attacked the convoy, the British destroyers turned tail and ran (at least from the American perspective) until some American destroyers arrived and took over escort.

Maybe it was just a young soldiers misinformed perspective.