By Ian McGowan

ON November 25, 1943 – American Thanksgiving Day – the British troopship HMT Rohna sailed from Algeria, headed for Bombay via the Suez Canal. An elderly passenger ship built for the India run, Rohna was shabby from war service. It was sailing in a convoy, formed at Gourock, of 24 ships in six columns. Designed to carry 100 passengers, it held a crew of 195 – Australian and British officers and Indian seamen – and 2193 military, mainly US GIs. There were also dogs, goats and a horse. It was as crowded as an 18th immigrant or slave ship.

Glaswegian Private William McGowan, 25, of the Royal Army Medical Corps, was the youngest of 13 children of a Partick family, and a former pupil of St Aloysius College. It is not obvious why he was on the Rohna as there were no British troops and there was a US medical unit. However his previous troopship had been damaged and made for safe haven. There is an airgraph (print from microfilm) from Billy in Algiers to his brother John, a Glasgow schoolteacher, serving in the Royal Navy in the same sector, sketching a ship and wishing him a Merry Christmas. He must have sent it just before sailing.

German action had recently sunk several Allied troopships and his brother's destroyer HMS Croome was frequently on patrol: three weeks earlier, they had rescued survivors of the troopship Marnix. So the convoy should have anticipated trouble. In fact, Rohna had insufficient lifeboats and safety equipment, much rotten or jammed; the crew were ill-trained and the passengers given little instruction in emergency procedures; it was the only ship without a barrage balloon.

On 26 November, the convoy had passed Algiers and was crossing the Bay of Bougie when it was attacked by 35 German planes from southern France. The Heinkel 177s each carried two Henschel 293 guided bombs, the latest offensive technology. Rocket-propelled, 20-feet long, with wings, weighing1500 pounds, they were radio-guided by crew to their target. (The bomber captain gave his account in the 1990s.)

The device had been developed by Professor Herbert Wagner, who even before the war ended was the first German spirited to the US to work on guided missile programmes. Fire from the convoy and escorts partly thwarted the attackers, but an H293 hit the Rohna on the port side, astern of the funnel, exploded in the engine room, and blew a huge hole in the starboard.

Then it was chaos: survivors’ accounts speak of horrible injuries, confused procedures, panicking crew, failing equipment; some lifeboats and rafts proved unusable. The ship’s hospital, Billy McGowan’s post, was right at the stern, so vulnerable to the blast and the inrush of water; there is no information about his fate.

Within an hour the Rohna sank stern first, taking many with her, and leaving hundreds clutching wreckage, or struggling to remain afloat; German planes repeatedly strafed them.

Following orders, the convoy sailed on, leaving escorts to search: next day they found men floating alive 20 miles from the sinking; eventually bodies washed up on beaches in North Africa and Italy, but 829 GIs were never found. Total fatalities were probably 1149, the greatest US loss at sea in the Second World War.

Why is this disaster – comparable with the sinking of the USS Arizona at Pearl Harbour – little known? Information reaching relatives was delayed and inaccurate; survivors’ letters were censored, and some families remained ignorant for 50 years. Military authorities warned troops not to speak and threatened court martial. Individuals criticised the ship and crew, but official histories published no account.

The authorities possibly feared for morale if superior German technology were reported, but continuing secrecy about the state of the ship, convoy organisation and behaviour of the crew may have been designed not to embarrass the British and US governments or services.

In 1960, a military historian who had been on the Rohna was refused Pentagon permission to write a book. The 1967 US Freedom of Information Act made some facts available, but families never received formal notice about relatives.

Billy McGowan’s mother received confirmation four months after the event that he was presumed killed; in official correspondence the ship, theatre of war, or circumstances are not mentioned. The War Office paid her seven shillings (35p) for 17 weeks. His old school publication mistakenly reported him killed in an attack at Bari in Italy.

More information has come from survivors; historian Carlton Jackson wrote a book and there was a History Channel documentary; and a crowdfunded documentary is in preparation. Perhaps the episode will finally reach the history books.