The Leopoldville Disaster

With the news this week of the tragedy of the cruise ship sinking off the coast of  Italy, this has brought to my mind another tragedy, the sinking of the Leopoldville on Dec. 24, 1944... 

I worked as a travel agent in the 80's and 90's and once an older gentleman came in, chewing gum and passing out gum and candy to everyone there.  As I was arranging his trip to see his army buddies at their annual reunion, I asked him what did he do in the war.  He looked at me and said, "Have you ever heard of the Leopoldville?"  Before I had a chance to reply, he said, "You wouldn't have, it was kept top secret for 50 years!".  Now, my co-workers didn't exactly roll their eyes but it was pretty close to it. When I asked him to please tell me more, he was eager to do so...

W.S. Conner (and I always called him Mr. Connor, in those days you didn't have to use your full name on an airline ticket and he always went by his initials) was in the United States Army, the 66th Infantry Division, they were called the Black Panthers.  They were in England, in Southhampton, and were being shipped out as replacements to fight in the Battle of the Bulge.  It was Christmas Eve 1944 and because it was Christmas, everything was lightly staffed.  The S S Leopoldville had already made 24 cross channel crossings with no problems but that was about to change...at 5:54PM the ship was hit by a torpedo and 248 men died from the hit...but then a further 515 were lost when the ship sank. (This total somewhat varies, I have read that the total lost was 802.)  This happened just five and half miles off the coast of France, near Cherbourg. The Captain of the ship, Captain Charles Limbor, sent out no distress messages, no calls for assistance...nothing! One of the escorts for the ship, the S S Brilliant, was able to take on some of the survivors. The ship was able to go alongside the Leopoldville and if it was timed just right, a soldier could actually jump from one ship to another. When I asked Mr. Connor if that is how he survived it, he said he had seen too many get crushed between the two ships and decided not to try it. (I have read that men WERE crushed between the ships and because the water was so choppy, some of them broke arms and legs jumping to the other ship.)  Survivors were told not to write or talk about it.  They were advised that if they did so, their GI benefits would be cancelled!  Incredibly, this was not cleared by the government to discuss until 1996! NO WONDER he wanted to talk about it!  I was able to get Mr. Connor to speak of his experience to the local Rotary Club and since it was the same year as the gigantic movie hit "Titantic", there was great interest in his story. 

Mr. Conner gave me a book to read about it, and I liked it so much, I ordered my own copy and asked him to sign it for me.  (He winked at me and told me that he wasn't mentioned BY NAME in the book but that there was a mention of him in it  and to see if I could recognize him when I came to it.) The name of the book is "A NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS" by Jacquin Sanders.  Jacquin "Jack" Sanders was on the SS Cheshire, another American ship full of GI's en route to Europe, the Cheshire was sailing just behind the Leopoldville when it was hit.  He was able to write of the sinking of the ship as an eye-witness.   In describing who was to blame for the mis-communication and foul-ups that resulted in so many drowning, this is what he had to say...
No single man or group was responsible for the catastrophe. The guilt was not national, not personal, perhaps there was no guilt at all. Certainly none was properly tested in court...Indeed, an undiluted guilty conscience is as rare in the Leopoldville episode as in most of life...in the general passage of action a small body of experienced men behaved on the whole badly, and large body of inexperienced men behaved very well. It was, in brief, a disaster full of human beings, and human unpredictability is its only lesson, and also, perhaps, its chief glory.

This book, A Night Before Christmas, is one of my most cherished books...

Now, back to Mr. Connor... as I read the book there on the page in front of me, is a description of a young man up on deck joking and laughing and passing out chewing gum and candy to all around him and his nickname was "Deep Pockets"!  I laughed and called him on the phone and said that of course, I knew that had to be him!    When I asked him to tell me the story of how he DID survive it, this is what he told me... he tied several duffel bags together, held on for dear life and went down with the ship!  HE WENT DOWN WITH THE SHIP! "Didn't the force suck you down?", I asked him.

"It tried to", he said, "but I kicked so hard and my bags held me up  and then I was in the water waiting to be rescued".    I then asked him, "How long were you in the water?".  This was his reply, "I was told that thirty minutes was all a body could stand before it would freeze, so I would say thirty minutes."  Now, I don't know if anyone has ever felt the cold waters of the English Channel, but I have and I can tell you the water is cold even in the summer, I can only imagine the cold waters of Dec. 24, 1944...