male: "Rohna sunk by German Air Force, loss of over 1,000 US troops."

♪♪♪ male: "Public relations urgently recommends immediate disclosure."

♪♪♪ male: "Casualty families are comparing notes with letters from survivors."

♪♪♪ "It's highly desirable to announce the loss of American troops."

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Stanley Hill: When we got on this old tub, man, it was rust--rusty.

Looked horrible, paint was peeling off.

It's Rohna.

Gus Gikas: The top side of the ship looked good.

It was not a problem up there, except that all of the lifeboats were rusted shut and we couldn't use them.

Saul Gurman: Release mechanism was frozen solid with rust.

And I took my helmet and I started pounding on them and my helmet looked like a tin can when I got done, but I couldn't break them loose.

Donald Freeman: It was a relic that should have been in the junkyard, in my estimation.

Carlo Veterano: We had gotten the instructions from the United States Army telling us not to talk about this ship.

Ever.

narrator: Augsburg, Germany, 1920.

A child in his family's 3rd floor apartment would play pilots with his toy airplanes.

His fascination with flying would one day kill over 1,000 soldiers, destroying the lives of so many people, including his own.

His name was Hans Dochtermann.

All he ever wanted was to be an airline pilot, but that all changed when the young man was called to war, a war that he didn't understand and didn't want to be part of.

Hans Dochtermann: I was a frontline soldier.

I had sworn the oath of allegiance and had to carry out the orders given to me.

narrator: The skilled pilot was promoted to captain in the German Air Force known as the Luftwaffe.

Dochtermann's accomplishments would get him selected for special operations training with Hitler's new secret weapon.

The Hs 293 radio-guided missile.

[speaking in German] [audience cheering] narrator: The radio guided missile was designed by a brilliant Austrian scientist.

Dr.

Herbert Wagner was obsessed with inventing the first radio guided missile that would ever be used in war, a war that would now include the United States of America.

Franklin D. Roosevelt: The United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.

With the unbounding determination of our people.

We will gain the inevitable triumph, so help us God.

[audience applauding] narrator: Young men around the nation were volunteering to serve their country.

Other boys were inducted into the war through the draft.

In Alabama, a young man from a blue collar family was working on a dream.

His name was John, John Fievet.

He had just enrolled in Auburn University and was studying hard while pulling down some pretty good grades.

On November 2nd, 1942, 19 year old John Fievet would leave Alabama along with his dream of a college degree and volunteer for the United States Army Air Corps.

In a riverside town in New Jersey, another young man would be called to war.

His name was Joe Pisinski.

He was an easygoing boy with a big smile.

Joe came from a close-knit family.

He was especially close to his sister Pauline.

The two were inseparable.

They say Pauline was known to keep an eye out for her kid brother.

In order to report to training had arrived at Joe's house.

He had been drafted.

And was soon on his way to train with the 31st Signal Construction Battalion.

As it turned out, Joe's sister Pauline, just out of nursing school, would join the 38th evacuation hospital without any idea that both she and her brother Joe would be heading to the same place in North Africa.

Joe Pisinski: Dear Mom, I'm feeling pretty well and everything's all right.

I miss you, Mom, and can hardly wait until I get back to Jersey and good old home again.

Believe me, it may be good any place, but there's no place like home.

Your loving son, Joe.

narrator: Back in Berlin, Hans Dochtermann completed his training for launching Dr.

Wagner's 12 ft long, 1,100-pound radio guided missile.

The glide bomb had an explosive rocket engine that would power the missile for only 10 seconds, yet give it enough force to glide to its target at 500 miles per hour.

♪♪♪ narrator: While Joe Pisinski's unit was waiting patiently in Iran for their orders, Joe searched desperately for his sister Pauline.

Joe Pisinski: Aye, sis, I've been here only a short time and already asked a number of people about your outfit, but no one seems to know.

It sure would be swell to see you.

Please answer soon.

Pauline Pisinski: Dear Joe, I had been on the lookout for you, but our unit has left North Africa.

I am now in Italy wishing you all the best of luck.

Please, stay safe, Joe.

narrator: It was bright and early on Thanksgiving morning when orders were given for thousands of troops to board the six ships docked at the port.

Along with 2,000 other American soldiers, Joe Pisinski and John Fievet walk up the gangplank and onto the British transport ship for their first day of war.

Ace Baldassari: The rats were coming down the gangplank as we were going up.

And you could flake off the paint like that... Flick it off.

Donald: There was no reason to let a ship in that condition even leave the harbor.

It should have been inspected.

narrator: The Rohna was under the command of Captain TJ Murphy, an Australian ship master with years of experience sailing merchant vessels and ocean liners.

Jason Markiewitz: The British India Steam Navigation Company lines used Indian Lascars as their crew since their inception on all the vessels, including the Rohna from the time it was launched in 1926.

As the ships were requisitioned into wartime service, then essentially the Lascar crew also became requisitioned into wartime service, and that was probably very new for a lot of them.

narrator: The Rohna was heading to India.

Their assignment was to support China, which was being invaded by Japan.

Stanley: Here we are on a British ship.

We have an Australian captain and a Hindu crew.

How much more ragged can you get?

We're carrying American troops.

narrator: Across the Mediterranean Sea, Capt.

Dochtermann awaited his next assignment.

He received orders for a strike on an allied convoy that was proceeding east in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of North Africa.

It was now time to put his missile training into practice.

On November 26th, 1943, Capt.

Dochtermann's unit took off from a German air base in occupied France with a radio guided missile attached under each wing of their bomber.

They were on a two-hour flight to conduct an air attack on the 31 ships that made up the KMF 26 convoy.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Stanley: Must have been about 30 or 35 of them.

I don't know exactly how many.

Jim Clonts: And I could hear the Rohna firing back at the airplanes that were dropping the bombs.

I could hear the bombs, they had a lot of them that missed.

You could hear them exploding out in the ocean.

John Fievet: Some of the bombs hit close by and we knew what was going on.

Then there was a lull and we figured we'd made it.

It all was quiet and the guns stopped.

Saul: A few guys pulled out their rosary beads, but everybody was completely silent, just sweating it out.

Stanley: One later on came back.

A lone aircraft came back.

Hans: I was seized with an unreasonable rage and told the observer to get the Hs 293 bomb ready for a sharp drop.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Russ More: When the attack began, I was up on deck and I watched everything, including the German plane that unleashed the radio controlled glider bomb with a joystick.

Once he dropped that radio controlled glider bomb, that glider bomb turned and steered right into us, and he was controlling it.

I didn't know at the time, but he was.

Robert Brewer: I saw this what I thought was a pursuit craft.

Stubby wings.

On fire.

That fire was a rocket engine and this thing was coming straight at our ship.

Gus: This thing separated from the aircraft and dropped down a few feet, gathered speed, and made a 90-degree turn and headed right into the Rohna.

The bomb was moving at something like 500 miles an hour, so it was pretty fast and coming straight at us.

Stanley: Started right for our boat.

And I told Leo the--my buddy, I said that's gonna hit, he said, "No, it's not."

He said, "It's gonna miss it."

I said it's gonna hit.

And it's gonna hit right here, and sure enough it did, knocked the engine out the other side.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Ace: Bomb exploded.

That wood splintered and it flew around like spears.

You should see some of the bodies were impaled with 4x4s, 2x4s right through their bodies.

You couldn't walk the deck, it was so bloody.

Saul: The lights went out and we just remained there and all of a sudden a couple of flashlights came on and said "Every man topside."

And what really shook me up is when someone yelled out, "Every man for himself."

Donald: Start surveying what was going on, we're trying to get the rafts off and trying to get the boats off, and we had no success whatsoever.

Like I said, the raft were rusted.

We--I don't know how many men were there trying to push it off.

John: Burned in my mind is looking back and seeing this huge hole which I and others described big enough to drive a Mack Truck through and on the flames.

And you could see the boys, some of them running and trying to get out and some did later, documented, come out through that hole.

Saul: I proceeded to go up to the highest point.

Took off my shoes, slid my waist life belt up under my armpits, took off my jacket and just stepped off the ship.

Robert: I drifted by myself.

It got dark.

The sea was choppy.

Rough, some waves.

Full of oil, some of it on fire.

John: But that was the main thing to get away from the ship.

But where were you going from there?

I figured that--I just figured my number was up and that was gonna be it.

What's my mother gonna think when she gets the telegram?

Jim: It took me about seemed like about 30 minutes to see anything because I'd be floating around in the water and the wave would come along and I'd be underwater for a while.

Al Stefenoni: I could hear men out there, the words I could hear was "Mama, Mama," not screaming or yelling, just "Mama."

Stanley: So we got on this hatch cover.

We run on to another friend of mine out.

He said his back was hurt, so we laid him up on there.

He got up on the patch cover and Leo and I, we held on to him, kept him on the patch cover and we got picked up about eight hours later.

Al: Couldn't go anymore, so I started to say so long to my family.

I started with my little sister and then my brother and on up until I got to my mother.

♪♪♪ Kind of broke down.

I promised her that I'd be home, and out of nowhere, the sky lit up, and 25, 30 feet from me was a ship.

John: Then this little ship appeared, a little gray ship, and I made my way toward it and they had a cargo net.

You didn't really have to climb, just wait for a swell to push you up a little higher and then two big old hands grabbed and yanked me on deck.

It wasn't like today, there wasn't a bunch of cameras seller, or reporters, or anybody else.

You just got off and loaded on a truck and taken to a British camp.

There were no American camps nearby, so we went to a British camp.

And we were put in a big tent and with a blanket on the ground.

It was rather welcomed being on solid ground, so nobody complained.

narrator: The news of the attack traveled swiftly.

Reporters out of Algiers, North Africa immediately announced the German air raid on the Allied convoy.

The very next day, hundreds of newspapers reported the German attack as a failure, only mentioning the German planes that were brought down.

male: "Thirty enemy planes attacked an Allied convoy in the Mediterranean this evening, and eight of the planes were shot down.

Damage to the convoy was negligible," Philadelphia Inquirer, November 27th, 1943. narrator: Surely the news story alleviated the fears of nervous parents and wives across the country.

Little did they know that the ship with negligible damage was now resting at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea and over 1,000 US soldiers were missing.

Martin Bollinger: Less than 24 hours after the attack, just after the survivors, most of them had reached the Philippville transit camp, in walks Capt.

Elmer Grimes of the Army Transportation Corps, he had must hustled his way by plane and car to get there almost immediately.

He consults with Lt.

Col.

Frolich, the senior commanding officer of the US Army troops on board, and issues a summary report.

male: "Conditions aboard sinking ship very bad as a result of signal system being damaged by blast, making it difficult to maintain order," Capt.

E.W.

Grimes, November 29th, 1943.

Martin: It basically ignores the debacle that was the evacuation process from the ship.

No mention of deficiencies in safety equipment, no mentions of issues with the personal safety gear the soldiers had, not proper life jackets, but inadequate life belts.

It almost sets the stage for the narrative that gets followed with other reports over the next couple of weeks.

narrator: On November 28th, two days after the attack, the first official report of the disaster was handwritten by Maj.

Lindsell, the highest ranking British officer who survived the missile attack.

male: "It is my opinion that the large loss of life was due, A, to the number injured in the original explosion.

B, to the number of lifeboats damaged by the blast, and the number capsized either in the water or before entering the water.

And, C, to the fitting of the US life preservers.

These are excellent, but for non-swimmers, if left around their waist, give support to the body in the wrong place.

They should be put beneath the armpits before entering the water," Maj.

Lindsell, November 28th, 1943. narrator: The British report was also signed by Lt.

Col.

Frolich.

The next day, Frolich, commander of all US troops on the Rohna, submitted his own report to US officials.

male: "Some of the enlisted men tried to lower the lifeboats.

A number lowered one end first and capsized when they hit the water.

I tried to get all the men overboard with their life jackets on and not to bother with the boats after I saw what was happening," Lt.

Col.

Frolich, November 30th, 1943.

Martin: The three accounts written by Grimes, Lindsell, and Frolich are extremely similar in how they describe what happened and especially similar in how they avoid mentioning real deficiencies in safety equipment, lifeboats that couldn't be launched, life wraps that were stuck to the deck, inadequate personal safety gear with the life belts rather than life jackets.

One senses that the intent is less to document lessons learned than it is to start a narrative that will deflect potential criticism of the Army and the Transportation Corps.

narrator: While the survivors were recuperating along the coast of North Africa, the War Department was busy compiling a roster of all the soldiers who were aboard the ship.

On that list was Joe Pisinski along with over 1,000 other US soldiers who were never heard from again.

John Fievet was one of 966 US soldiers who survived the attack on the Rohna.

John: The thing that's burned in my memory most is the day they finally got a roster from Washington and lined us up and call the roll, the deafening silence when there was no answer, and that happened for 1,000 or so men, they weren't there anymore.

They were--it--the impact of it really hit hard when you knew how many we had lost.

We knew how many in our little group of 20, we--we lost 12.

So we knew what had happened a little bit.

Nobody gave us any details until later.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Carlton Jackson: They would fly in formation and they would peel off and attack and then they would regroup afterwards which is what most of the--the planes did except for Maj.

Dochtermann, he broke away from the formation and decided to make his own personal attack which I guess, in a way, was a violation of orders right there but he just simply said he wanted to have a hit.

Robert: At that time, Roosevelt, Churchill, and Chiang Kai-shek were meeting in Cairo, and they were notified immediately of the attack.

And through their counseling one another, it was determined that that would be top secret security.

Don't let anybody talk about it.

Gus: Well, the troop commander got us all together and said, "This whole incident is classified secret and you're not to talk about it to anybody."

Ace: Sworn to secrecy, you know.

You don't--don't tell anyone.

John: If you were to write home about it, you would be subject to court martial.

male: "Dear Mom, here are some greetings from North Africa.

This is the best I can get.

Wish you all at home all the best holiday greetings.

Your loving son, Joe."

narrator: Joe's mother received a Christmas card that he had mailed out before boarding the Rohna.

A week after getting the Christmas card, a telegram from the US War Department was delivered to Mary Pisinski stating that her son, Joe, was missing in action.

John: So midnight Mass was held in the tent, a big tent, it was quite an occasion, so.

That was our Christmas Day.

narrator: On that same Christmas Day, a month after the attack, a classified document stated that the North African Theater of Operations had completed their casualty report listing 998 casualties.

Two days later, the War Department confirmed that they received the list of casualties.

male: "List of personnel lost in the sinking of Rohna has just been received from North Africa."

December 27th, 1943, RBL.

narrator: Despite having the list of casualties, the war department started sending out missing-in-action telegrams to the families of every soldier on the casualty list.

The families of the soldiers killed in the Rohna attack were led to believe that their loved one was missing in action and may still be alive.

It would be five agonizing months of waiting.

Many mothers never left their home, they would just stare at the telephone, waiting for it to ring with good news.

Others made regular visits to the churches and synagogues, begging God for their boy's safe return.

While the unknown was haunting casualty families who were living with false hope, the War Department would not allow information about the Rohna attack to be released.

male: "It is quite probable that enemy is unaware of the success he achieved in this case.

It is therefore preferred that no announcement be made."

January 8th, 1944, no signature.

narrator: Although the Bureau of Public Relations understood the need for security, they were adamant about informing the families that their loved ones had died.

They pleaded with the War Department.

male: "Think it highly desirable to announce loss of American troops due to sinking of troop ship in the Mediterranean.

Next of kin have been told soldiers missing in action.

Believe it desirable to inform them soldiers were lost at sea otherwise they will continue to hope they may be prisoners," Bureau of Public Relations, January 10th, 1944.

Martin: The Bureau of Public Relations in the Army seems to have been distressed at the idea that families were led to believe their loved ones were missing in action when, in fact, they knew they had been killed in action, and they sought permission to provide the families with more detail about what happened to their loved ones.

male: "Bureau of Public Relations has tried to secure permission of theater to release a limited account of this affair.

Each time the naval commander in the Mediterranean, Admiral Cunningham, has disapproved release," February 11th, 1944, HGS.

narrator: Other classified documents as early as January 4th would begin to tell a story, a story about conflict, not a conflict with the Germans but an internal conflict among War Department officials who could not agree on how much information should be given out to families of the casualties.

They also struggled with how to, if at all, announce the attack to the American public.

On February 17th, three months after the attack, The War Department finally announced that 1,000 troops were lost at sea.

It was a big headline, but a small article without any details, no date of the attack or name of the ship.

It didn't even mention the Mediterranean Sea.

The War Department eventually settled on releasing information about the attack in a press release that included false information for security purposes.

male: "War Department gives European waters as disastrous scene.

Enemy attack is attributed to a submarine," February 17th, 1944, New York Times.

narrator: Another misleading press release reached newspapers from around the world, only adding more confusion and concern to the families of the soldiers who were killed in the attack and were still holding on to false hope.

Martin: Pressure had been building for something, and the adjutant general got involved starting around March, and they decided to commission a proper study including interviews with survivors, not trivial, because the survivors are now scattered from India to China.

The study is done, the interviews are collected, the information comes back, and a Capt.

Joseph Hennessy, a Harvard trained lawyer working in the adjutant general's office is asked to write a summary report.

male: "The troops were left on their own devices to perform the unaccustomed task of lowering the boats.

In this task, they were hampered by the defective condition of the lowering equipment.

Practically all the boats were hanging on chains which had rusted in place and were immovable," Joseph F. Hennessy, captain, special determination subsection.

Gus: Instead of scraping the paint and cleaning them, and make sure that the boats were still operating, they just used heavy paint and painted over everything so it--they look good from the outside but when you tried to launch them, they just wouldn't launch at all.

Ace: I haven't heard or read about any lifeboat that made it to the sea in one piece, you know.

Jason: The ships already were rusting.

Some of the cables had rust in the joints, some of the areas specifically looking at the lifeboats had rust in and around the the operating mechanisms and so forth, and all of those things got painted over.

And so you already had a ship that was in disrepair, already had a ship that was rusting in a few other places, and then all that was painted over and then you ended up getting additional rust on top of that.

narrator: The Hennessy report also points out problems with the life belts that needed to be inflated.

male: "Many of the men, unable to swim and unaccustomed to this type of life preserver, which fails to keep the head above water, became panic-stricken and struggled so violently that they swallowed large quantities of sea water and quickly succumbed to exhaustion."

Jason: When the men boarded the Rohna, they were issued life belts.

These were the M1926, which were more designed for those who were doing beach landings or used on landing craft, per se, not necessarily open water engagements, where you would typically see a life vest being worn or something to that degree.

So it was not necessarily the right life preserver for the environment where the men were on the HMT Rohna, but it was what they were issued.

Carlo: It wrapped around you and it hooked on a couple hooks it hooked on.

I had it around my waist, but you soon found out that it should have been up around the shoulders, underneath the shoulders because as we've seen a lot of guys that had around the waist, that was a pivot spot of their body.

Al: I stuck my head down in the water, my feet in the air, and I think I drank half of the ocean there.

I got thinking maybe if I move that belt instead of around my waist because no one told us how to wear them.

narrator: If things were not bad enough for the casualty families, the Hennessy report states that although hundreds of bodies from the Rohna were sighted one week after the attack, there was no attempt to recover them.

male: "On the 2nd of December 1943 the American patrol officer at Bougie, Algeria, reported that groups of bodies, each group numbering 150 to 200, had been sighted approximately 25 miles off the coast of Bougie traveling northeast at a rate of two miles per day."

narrator: The decision not to recover the bodies meant that there would not be any funeral services or burials for the fallen soldiers.

Six months after the attack, the parents received a telegram informing them that their son had died.

They never found out what happened.

Their boys just never came home.

Catherine Fievet: You can't ever make up for all of these years that the parents grieved, and wondered, and went to fortune tellers, just had no idea what became of their boys.

Martin: What's interesting about Hennessy's report is it really depends upon the accounts of the survivors.

Almost 100 individual interviews were conducted.

Failures of lifeboats, life rafts, inadequate personal safety gear with life belts, it's all written down, documented accurately and precisely using firsthand accounts.

The Army never releases it, classifies it as secret, and it stayed that way for several more decades.

narrator: August 6th, 1945, the United States dropped an atomic bomb over Hiroshima in what became the beginning of the end of World War II.

It would also mark the beginning of, well, what some people would call a cover-up.

Others looked at it as an oversight, but either way, the Rohna files stayed classified for years after the war ended.

In 1945, there wasn't a whole lot you could do to get answers.

Besides, it was easier for casualty families to accept their loss than to relive their pain.

As for the survivors, most of them went home and started families.

They followed orders and never talked about the Rohna again.

They buried it in a place where it would sit for a long time.

Stanley: I had put it out of my mind.

Put off to the back and left it there.

I'd look at the Purple Heart once in a while and it would bring back memories.

♪♪♪ Russ: After the war was over and I got out of the service, I didn't talk to--I didn't even tell my parents about it.

And you know, I've read stories the others were the same way.

Darlene Berube: One night we were watching television and it was a war story, and it was a ship that was going down and my husband was crying.

And I said, "Oh, Fred, it's just a story."

He said, "But that happened to me."

That's how I found out about the Rohna.

He told me the whole story and told me that I could not repeat it because the government, the officials had told them they were to keep this in secrecy, they were never to speak of it.

Gus: Losing 1,000 people, how can you cover that up?

But they did.

narrator: In 1958, Col.

John Virden, a Rohna survivor, was working on a book about the Rohna attack.

In his research, he wrote a letter to Capt.

Murphy regarding the book he was writing.

male: "My peace will be a sympathetic one.

If it casts blame on anybody other than the Germans who, according to their lights, were only doing their duty.

The US Navy will come in for some lumps, for as I'm sure you know, most of the men lost with your ship simply drowned during the night due, primarily, to the type of life belt issued to them by the US Navy," September 10, 1958, John M. Virden, Colonel, US Air Force.

Carlton: In 1960, he wanted to write a book.

He was denied permission.

He didn't write it because the US Army said it would embarrass not only the American government but the British government as well.

And as the truth, at least as we perceive it, you know, as best as we can understand, the truth, what actually happened, in my opinion, both governments should have been embarrassed.

narrator: Maybe so, but the British had no part in supplying the life belts issued to US troops.

male: "Inflatable life belts are not provided as life-saving appliances by this department and were presumably issued in this instance by the American forces," June 21, 1944, GE Craven, Sea Transport Department.

narrator: We do know one thing, both the US Navy and the UK Admiralty had strict rules and procedures for safety.

The 1942 statutory rules and orders about safety on British merchant transport ships didn't exactly line up with the non-functioning lifeboats on the HMT Rohna.

male: All lifeboats and launching gear must at all times be kept ready to enable the lifeboats to be lowered into the water without delay.

Martin: It's clear there were a lot of unnecessary casualties aboard Rohna during the process of abandoning ship.

There were three tiers that were supposed to provide safety.

All three failed.

The lifeboats couldn't be launched, and when they were launched, they broke upon impact and couldn't be used.

So you go to the life rafts.

The life rafts in many cases couldn't be extracted from the ship.

They were, in effect, welded by rust of the ship.

So then you rely upon the personal safety gear.

If equipped with proper life jackets, I believe many more of these soldiers would have survived.

narrator: You have to wonder who played a role in allowing 2,000 young men to board an overcrowded ship that was going into dangerous waters without functioning lifeboats and insufficient life preservers?

No one was ever held accountable for the mistakes and negligence of the HMT Rohna disaster.

Donald: I don't know why it was actually kept such a secret for so long.

Was it some general or some officer that gave the permission to let this particular ship go in this way?

So he didn't want him until he had died or something?

There's some reason that this has been kept so long, something like, well, to 1995, it's over 50 years.

narrator: Maybe Mr.

Freeman was on to something.

Was it part of a cover up to keep some important people out of trouble?

Or just a lot of bad luck during a very difficult time in US history?

For some reason, the Rohna attack was classified indefinitely.

Martin: So it's logical to ask why the information was suppressed.

There may have been a security angle that was genuine.

Organizations also seek to protect their public image, and this would have been in a very embarrassing account to have half or more of the casualties be unnecessary because of deficiencies in equipment and procedure.

narrator: It would be almost 50 years before the survivors would see the Rohna files and learn the truth.

What we do know is that the files were classified long after the war was over, and most of the casualty families went to their own graves, never knowing how their loved ones died.

Of the 1,015 US soldiers killed in the Rohna attack, most of their remains were never recovered.

Eighty-one bodies washed up on the shores of North Africa where most of them were buried.

Ten more bodies made their way to the coast of Italy and were buried there.

Years later, some of those 91 remains were sent home to their families and laid to rest in the United States.

The remainder were lost at sea.

Their names are on the Wall of the Missing at the North Africa American Cemetery.

When a war ends, life goes on for those who survive.

One survivor, John Fievet, returned home to Alabama.

He got married and started a family.

He even went back to college and received a degree in business.

In 1993, as the 50th anniversary of the Rohna attack was nearing, John wrote down his account of the sinking of the Rohna and sent it to a local newspaper.

The story was picked up by "The Associated Press" and made its way around the country.

The article about the Rohna attack ended up on Charles Osgood's desk and he featured the Rohna story on his syndicated national radio program, "The Osgood Files."

Between the newspaper story and the Osgood program, survivors started talking about the attack, many for the first time.

Jason: So when Charles Osgood did his radio story, I think it really opened the door for more connection for the men who survived.

We want to connect people who never knew what happened to their ancestor who either died on the Rohna or died never telling the story of what happened on the Rohna, either way, and be able to provide those answers.

narrator: John and several other survivors started the Rohna Survivors Memorial Association.

He then went on to have a monument placed at a national cemetery in Seale, Alabama.

Another survivor, Dr.

Herbert Wagner, the scientist who invented the Hs 293 missile, surrendered to a US naval intelligence team.

The US War Department considered Wagner as a man with skills unmatched anywhere in the world.

Martin: So within days of Germany's surrender, Herbert Wagner is smuggled aboard an airplane and brought to the US, the very first German scientist taken to the US.

He immediately goes to work with the US Navy in a secret facility helping the Navy develop guided weapons for the continuing war against Japan.

The war in Japan is not over.

He spends time developing advanced guidance systems for US Navy missiles.

Once the war is over, he next contributes to additional programs of the Navy and brings the Navy into the modern missile age.

narrator: The pilot commanding the plane that attacked the Rohna didn't fare as well.

Hans Dochtermann who had been promoted to Major, was captured and imprisoned by the British Army.

When the war ended, he was released and returned to Germany.

Hans: I condemn every war.

The memory of all fallen soldiers, no matter what nation, makes me deeply sad.

narrator: Major Dochtermann had carried the burden of the attack for the rest of his life, stating, "The war will never be over in my mind until the day I die."

When he was close to his death, he asked his grandson Shawn Dochtermann to do something for him that he had thought about for a long time.

Catherine: He was very remorseful at what he had done, and he cried when he tried to talk about it.

He asked his grandson, would he apologize for--on on his behalf.

Shawn, who was an American citizen, attended a Rohna survivors reunion in 2004.

He met with the survivors and fulfilled his grandfather's last wish.

Robert: I introduced Shawn to the audience and I said, "He is here.

He wanted to be here.

He deserves to be here."

And I said, "Let's receive him.

He had no hand in the Rohna, but he has a big hand in us, so."

I turned him over to the audience, and they welcomed him, stood up, clapped for him, and it was a cordial welcome.

Shawn Dochtermann: Here's the last years of his life, and you want to do something to fix it but there's no way to fix it, you know, you're kind of broken.

I believe that what I did was very cathartic because there were--they gave me a standing ovation, and I was crying, and the reunion director rushed up to hug me because she knew that I was very vulnerable and I needed that.

And then people came up and hugged me and shook my hand and said, "Thank you for coming because you gave us closure for our family," and I think that's why I was there, to make that happen, to bridge the gap.

Carlton: The villain is war, not the people who actually participated in it.

If you want to find villains, you have to go to Washington and Berlin, not to the GIs who actually fought the war.

Carlo: I don't know why they can't sit down at a table and talk this thing over.

I don't care if it takes a week or a month.

Just talk over and find out what you could do before going to war 'cause you kill a lot of soldiers, kill a lot of people, good people.

♪♪♪ narrator: Like Major Dochtermann, Pauline Pisinski also had an important request late in her life.

Fred Fulham: "Before I pass away," she said, "I would like to have my brother's picture put on the tombstone even though he's not there, just so that we wouldn't know--so people would know that he is thought of there."

And we did that and we showed it to her and she was very happy about that.

Jack Metcalf: The US troops aboard the Rohna have been largely forgotten by the country, was not publicized at the time at all.

The men who gave their lives for their country on board this ship were heroes who deserved to be recognized as such and not forgotten.

The parents of virtually all of them died without ever learning how their sons had died.

narrator: Finally, the United States of America would acknowledge and give recognition to the Rohna disaster.

Robert: Everything that's such a drastic measure as that was in my mind, tactically, you pay a price if you lose.

We had to pay a big price.

We lost the Rohna.

Russ: When I would think, "Why was I allowed to live and others were not?"

'cause I had a lot of friends on there who didn't survive.

John: The legacy of the men who died on the Rohna is they built beautiful friendships that were formed as a result of that tragedy, and that is so true, and I've got so many of them that I cherish their friendship.

Ace: I had nothing on my conscience that would would bother me.

It's something that happened.

It's happened, it's over.

Good.

And I made it.

Wasn't my time to go.

Stanley: I wasn't on a survivor list when it came out, and I wasn't on the deceased list.

So my wife said, "Where were you during the war?"

I said, "Well, I was in China, honey, believe me."

Darlene: All of these gentlemen that went through this honored their country's request not to speak of this terrible tragedy.

But after the war was over, why didn't their country honor them by bringing this story out?

♪ What happened off the coast of Africa ♪ ♪ November '43 ♪ ♪ Was a well-kept secret in our nation's history ♪ ♪ 1,015 of our men died on that day ♪ ♪ When the HMT Rohna went to her watery grave ♪ ♪ We were mostly new recruits who'd never been to war ♪ ♪ Nothing in our lives would be like it was before ♪ ♪ Down through the years, it was hard for us to speak ♪ ♪ About the painful memories ♪ ♪ That would haunt us in our sleep ♪ ♪ Our gunners on deck, were busy pouring lead ♪ ♪ At Hitler's flying squadron coming in from the west ♪ ♪ Their secret guided bomb hit above our water line ♪ ♪ Blasted through the engine room and out the other side ♪ ♪ And the waters poured in like a raging flood ♪ ♪ And soon turned to crimson from the body ♪ ♪ And the blood ♪ ♪♪♪ ♪ We scrambled to the top side ♪ ♪ Through the fire and the smoke ♪ ♪ And tried to free the lifeboats ♪ ♪ By cutting through the ropes ♪ ♪ Hundreds made it to the water ♪ ♪ Some drowned without a vest ♪ ♪ We saw cowardice and courage ♪ ♪ And things you don't confess ♪ ♪ A sweeper called a pioneer with heroes for a crew ♪ ♪ Crashed through the waves and strafing ♪ ♪ And came to our rescue ♪ ♪ Our old flesh and bones bear the scars we got back then ♪ ♪ But inside our spirits looking out ♪ ♪ Are brave young, handsome men ♪ ♪ Our gunners on deck were busy pouring lead ♪ ♪ As Hitler's flying squadron coming in from the west ♪ ♪ Their secret guided bomb hit above our water line ♪ ♪ Blasted through the engine room and out the other side ♪ ♪ And the waters poured in like a raging flood ♪ ♪ And soon what turned to crimson from the body ♪ ♪ And the blood ♪ ♪♪♪ ♪ May those bones around her rusty hull ♪ ♪ Forever rest in peace ♪ ♪ And the men who sailed the Rohna ♪ ♪ Have their page in history ♪♪ ♪♪♪