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On Christmas Eve 1944, the Belgium troopship Léopoldville, left the pier at Southampton, England with over 2,000 American soldiers assigned to the 66th Infantry Division and crossed the English Channel to France. Léopoldville was in a diamond formation with four escorts; the destroyers HMS Brilliant and HMS Anthony, the frigate HMS Hotham, and the French frigate Croix de Lorraine, and another troopship, Cheshire.
Just 5 1/2 miles from its destination, Cherbourg, the Leopoldville was torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine U-486. There were 763 American soldiers killed and the bodies of 493 were never recovered from the Channel’s frigid 48 degree waters.
The War Department said little in its telegrams. It wanted no one to know that a German U-boat, U-486, had stalked and sunk the converted passenger liner SS Léopoldville, killing about one-third of the 2,200 soldiers on board. The survivors weren’t allowed to discuss what happened.
The Léopoldville got underway about 9 a.m. on Dec. 24, -a survivor say- recalls was an awful Christmas dinner of greenish stew over rice as the ship tossed about on the choppy Channel waves.
"...Suddenly, just before 6 p.m., a huge shock rocked the ship from the starboard (right) side back near the stern. Many soldiers in that part of the ship died instantly, or were trapped below decks. Many soldiers had missed a lifeboat drill earlier, so they didn’t know where to go or how to don a life vest..."
A British destroyer escort, the HMS Brilliant, had pulled alongside and nudged its prow up against the troopship. Its crew members were urging soldiers on the Léopoldville to jump across. Trouble was, the destroyer’s deck was quite a bit lower than the Léopoldville’s. And the rough seas made the Brilliant a bobbing, hard-to-hit target. The penalty for missing was severe: being crushed between the two ships’ steel hulls as the waves crashed them together.
About 8:30 p.m. the ship started to sink.
This tragedy is one of the worst in US history, but it is still unknown to many. Even during its time the news of this Christmas Eve sinking was hidden. Military censors concealed the sinking of the SS Léopoldville to the American Home Front so morale wouldn’t be broken and to keep the Axis from knowing that so many soldiers for the war would never make it.
Just 5 1/2 miles from its destination, Cherbourg, the Leopoldville was torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine U-486. There were 763 American soldiers killed and the bodies of 493 were never recovered from the Channel’s frigid 48 degree waters.
The War Department said little in its telegrams. It wanted no one to know that a German U-boat, U-486, had stalked and sunk the converted passenger liner SS Léopoldville, killing about one-third of the 2,200 soldiers on board. The survivors weren’t allowed to discuss what happened.
The Léopoldville got underway about 9 a.m. on Dec. 24, -a survivor say- recalls was an awful Christmas dinner of greenish stew over rice as the ship tossed about on the choppy Channel waves.
"...Suddenly, just before 6 p.m., a huge shock rocked the ship from the starboard (right) side back near the stern. Many soldiers in that part of the ship died instantly, or were trapped below decks. Many soldiers had missed a lifeboat drill earlier, so they didn’t know where to go or how to don a life vest..."
A British destroyer escort, the HMS Brilliant, had pulled alongside and nudged its prow up against the troopship. Its crew members were urging soldiers on the Léopoldville to jump across. Trouble was, the destroyer’s deck was quite a bit lower than the Léopoldville’s. And the rough seas made the Brilliant a bobbing, hard-to-hit target. The penalty for missing was severe: being crushed between the two ships’ steel hulls as the waves crashed them together.
About 8:30 p.m. the ship started to sink.
This tragedy is one of the worst in US history, but it is still unknown to many. Even during its time the news of this Christmas Eve sinking was hidden. Military censors concealed the sinking of the SS Léopoldville to the American Home Front so morale wouldn’t be broken and to keep the Axis from knowing that so many soldiers for the war would never make it.