By Patrick Cullen
On Nov. 26, 1943, 1,015 U.S. servicemen were killed in the greatest loss of life at sea by enemy action in U.S. history when the HMT (“His Majesty’s Transport”) Rohna, a 1926-built British India Steam Navigation Company passenger and cargo liner that was requisitioned as a troop ship in 1940, was attacked by a German Luftwaffe bomber plane carrying a secret, radio-guided missile, in the first such attack on American forces.
Seventy-seven of these men were from New Jersey.
Hudson County, which suffered the most fatalities of any New Jersey county from this attack, lost 14 men:
From Jersey City: Pvt. William J. Burke, Pfc. Angelo Danese, Pvt. Marion Goracy, Cpl. William Hewett, Sgt. Edward Kelly Jr., T/5 Gaetano Maltesi, Pvt. Joseph Migliorino, Sgt. William Morgan.
From Kearny: T/4 Vincent Jeleniewski.
From Secaucus: Pfc. Louis A. Lanza.
From Union City: Pvt. John F. Kruse and Pvt. James J. O’Neill.
And from West New York: T/4 Joseph W. Conrad and Staff Sgt. Leonard S. Rauch.
Survivors recalled that the lifeboats did not work. Several survivors said that they were ordered not to talk about the attack, under threat of court martial. The families were not told what happened. Few bodies were recovered.
The U.S. did not want the enemy to know how successful their attack was. They also did not want to panic the public with the high loss of life figures.
On Nov. 25 of last year at the New Brunswick Performing Arts Center in New Brunswick, the world premiere of “Rohna Classified” took place. Fellow veteran and friend of the West New York Museum, retired WNYFD Capt. Alan Ballester and I attended this well-made documentary, which was produced, directed and written by Jack Ballo, whose wife, Barbara, is the great-niece of one of the soldiers killed in the Rohna attack, Sgt. Joseph Pisinski, of South River, New Jersey; co-produced by Michael Walsh, Hayley Bricker (whose great-uncle Pfc. Harold Bricker of Pennsylvania was killed aboard the Rohna) and Cynthi Stefoni, whose father, Alfred Stefoni, survived the Rohna attack; and researched by Ann Good, whose uncle Pvt. Henry William Bly of the Royal Medical Army Corps was lost in the Rohna attack. Janice Pumelia, who is the daughter of Rohna survivor Anthony Pumelia, served as the documentary’s education and outreach coordinator.
Those six individuals participated in a live Q&A panel after the showing of the film.
Thanks to the family of West New York’s Staff Sgt. Leonard Rauch, who was killed in the Rohna attack, his picture was displayed at the end of the film with available photos of others who made the ultimate sacrifice aboard the Rohna.
If anyone has a photo of the other West New Yorker who went down with the sinking of the HMT Rohna, T/4 Joseph W. Conrad, who attended St. Joseph of the Palisades High School in the late 1930s-early 1940s, please contact me at: pcullen@westnewyorknj.org.
Starting Memorial Day weekend, the “Rohna Classified” documentary will have its global online premiere from May 24-June 1. There is no charge to watch the documentary. On select nights, there will be live Q&A panel discussions in which viewers can participate.
If any readers are friends or relatives of any of the listed Hudson County servicemen or any other servicemen who perished aboard this ship and have photographs of any of these men, please use the contact tab on the documentary’s website to inform the producers so these photographs can be added to this documentary. The website is: https://www.rohnaclassified.com.
Patrick Cullen serves as West New York Town Historian and the Weehawken American Legion Post 18 Historian; is a lifetime member and former vice president of the Hudson County Genealogical and Historical Society; and is the author of “1780 Battle of the Blockhouse of North Bergen, New Jersey,” 2018 (rev. 2021) and “The History of West New York, New Jersey,” 2023.
