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Shipwreck of the SS Leopoldville over Cherbourg
Uploaded by deepwreck
Two days before Christmas '44 some two thousand paratroopers boarded the Belgian troopship Leopoldville at Pier 38, Southampton. Shortly thereafter, they were told to disembark. Someone had made a mistake and they were told they were on the wrong ship. Little did they know at the time how 'lucky' they had been.
In the early hours of the next day, December 24th, 2,235 men of the United States Army's 66th Infantry Division (the Black Panthers) began boarding the Leopoldville. The rest of the Division were loaded aboard the Cheshire, a British transport. In keeping with the foul-up of the previous day, none were assigned specific quarters and they were berthed wherever there was room as they boarded and not, by unit, squad or company. Confusion seemed to be the order of the day. No lifeboat drill was performed and the life belts were secured in their stowage compartments. None were issued to the men onboard.
The video below is not in English, but worth the view.
Leopoldville sank over Cherbourg in 1944
Uploaded by deepwreck
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Lorient Capitulates 1945 - 2
Uploaded by brest44
On 10 May 1945, Allied Troops enter the ruins of Lorient cheered by crowds of rejoicing french civilians gathered along the roads leading to the city. The Germans had agreed to stockpile all surrendered weapons and equipment to a designated stadium and were to assist U.S. engineers in clearing roads of mines and repairing bridges. In a meadow near Caudon, on 10 May 1945 at 1600 Hrs, during an official ceremony, General Fahrmbacher, commander of Fortress Lorient, offers his side arm as a token of surrender to General Kramer commander of the 66th Infantry Division “Black Pantherâ€. French civilians are celebrating their liberation by parading through towns and villages.
If you can watch this thru without tears you are a stronger person than I! One of the moments in history that change lives, build futures and create pride.
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The 66th Infantry Division was a unit of the United States Army in World War II.
Nickname: Black Panther Division
Shoulder patch: Red bordered circle, containing black panther's head against an orange background.
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Combat Chronicle
The three regiments of the 66th Infantry Division arrived in England, 26 November 1944, and the remainder of the Division, 12 December 1944, training until 24 December 1944 when the Division crossed the English Channel to Cherbourg on two Belgian steamships, the Chesire and the Leopoldville.
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A German torpedo ripped into the transport Leopoldville just 5 miles from its destination of Cherbourg, and 14 officers and 748 enlisted men were lost.
Attached to the 12th Army Group and designated the 12th Army Group Coastal Sector, with operational control of all French forces in the area, the 66th relieved the 94th Division in the Brittany-Loire area, 29 December 1944.
Its mission of containing the enemy in the St. Nazaire and Lorient pockets was carried out by daily reconnaissance patrols, limited objective attacks, and the maintenance of harassing and interdictory fires on enemy installations. A heavy German attack near La Croix was repulsed, 16 April 1945, and several strongly emplaced enemy positions were taken, 19-29 April 1945. Enemy troops in the Lorient and St. Nazaire pockets surrendered to the Division upon the end of hostilities in Europe, 8 May 1945.
The 66th moved to Germany on occupation duty, in the Koblenz subarea, 20 May 1945, and left for Marseille, 26 May 1945. It sailed for home 27 October 1945.
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Nightmare Before Christmas
As we here at Skylighters do each Christmas, we take a journey of remembrance back to that final Christmas of the war in Europe. We usually tell a story about what it was like to spend that holy day on a windswept ridge above the Seigfried line, or at a frozen airstrip in eastern France, or in a POW camp on the Polish frontier. Sometimes the stories are uplifting; other times, they're tragic. Sometimes, the story contains elements of both. The point is to remember what it was like for those who won our right, all those Decembers ago, to enjoy our freedoms this December, and there is no more poignant tale for this purpose than the sinking of the Leopoldville.
This year, thanks to the kindness of an English newspaper, we relay the story of the "Nightmare Before Christmas," the sinking of the troopship SS Leopoldville in the English Channel on Christmas Eve, 1944, a tragedy that took nearly 800 American lives. It's a story that few Americans of my generation are aware of, and even some of the WW II generation may not have heard.
As a (relatively) young man myself, it's always a sobering thing to read the names of war dead, and in the case of the Leopoldville, it seems all the more horrible that all those bright young men of the 66th Infantry Division ("The Black Panthers") died on Christmas Eve just under six miles from friendly shores. That a U-boat fired a torpedo into the former Belgian liner was a known risk of warfare. As a result, many of the young infantrymen aboard never saw Christmas 1944, or, indeed, another Christmas at all. But what contributed to the deaths of so many of the 800 and what happened afterward could not have been imagined.
Who were these men? I took the trouble to look up some of their names. There's Carlton Garlan of Stockton, Alabama; James L. McNair of Calhoun Falls, South Carolina; and William A. Klosterman of Rockville Center, New York. And Pablo G. Franco of Loving, New Mexico and John Marzotto of Weehawken, New Jersey. Scranton, Pennsylvnia gave Walter J. Skibinski and Chicago, Illinois sacrificed Albert Verbauen. I whisper the names in the dark room as I type this. For those moments that the letters materialize on the page in pronounceable patterns, I feel somehow this long-dead men are remembered. Like the scene in Saving Private Ryan where Ryan asks what the names were of the men who died looking for him, the mere intonation of each name (Caparzo, Wade) has resonance, meaning. Like Ryan, who repeats the names to himself, saying the names of the dead aloud is a way of remembering them.
With each name uttered I'm transported back to that black Christmas Eve 58 years ago. The lights twinkling in the windows across the street may have been how the harbor lights of Cherbourg may have looked through the mist that night in 1944. I see wreaths floating on the dark water — not Christmas wreaths, but funeral wreaths. Black circular holes in the water through which these young men disappeared as if down a coal chute into those cold English depths, the surface chopped by the hand of fate that night to the whipped green-white color of frozen spinach. It must have been much like the cold water of Long Island's Great South Bay that lays before me today as I contemplate the events of December 24, 1944. Somehow the common ocean connects this spot to that, across that other ocean, time. And that place is no hallowed "altar of victory" on which those boys were symbolically sacrificed. That night the sea was an unforgiving slab concealing a murderous vortex that stupidly robbed those GIs of their futures in pure "here one minute, gone the next" finality. And today it is in no uncertain terms a silent graveyard 180 feet below the Channel. A gash in the ocean through which the 66th passed to join the drowned and dead of the 1st, and the 4th, and the 29th, and others of dozens of units who had made the same crossing on a much warmer day in June, all without completing it. It's just that there are no white crosses or stars for these 800. Just darkness and murk.
So, on this Christmas Eve 2002, I will think about the last days of those 800 GIs, many of them teenagers, sons who would never have sons or daughters of their own. Perhaps there was a cure for cancer among them. Or a peace plan for a future conflict. Or a small instance of tenderness when it was needed, or the right words at the right time to a single person. I will think about their last vision of Christmas, spent perhaps in a chilly English drill hall with makeshift trees strung with garlands of silver gum wrappers, "ornaments" of balled-up cigarette packs, and crowning stars fashioned from flattened tin cans. And when the last order came, to " gear up and move out," perhaps they were really scared for the first time. They were heading to France, and into combat to reinforce the units being bloodied in the Battle of the Bulge.
Only they never made it. They died before they had the chance to die another day.
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Who was the 66th Division? Activated on April 15, 1943 their life as a U.S. Army Division was just 2 years, 6 months and 24 days. The Panther Division was an orphan. No Army claimed it. At the time, other divisions never heard of them. They got almost no publicity and when they did, most often the media down played their mission while men were being wounded or killed on a daily basis. Even on Christmas Eve 1944, one of their troopships was torpedoed crossing the English Channel on its way to France killing hundreds of men, which resulted in one of the worst maritime disasters in WWII. It was kept a secret and hidden by the British and U.S. Governments.
Once in France, Panthermen fought in a campaign that is most often referred to as the "Forgotten War", their mission was to contain 53,000 German troops in and around St. Nazaire and Lorient pockets in Northern France. This was done to prevent the enemy from breaking out and harassing allied forces that were sweeping across Europe. There were 14 submarine pens located in St. Nazaire and another 3 in the Lorient. The enemy was dug in with some of the toughest troops Germany had to offer. Artillery duels, limited objective attacks, patrolling, harassing and capturing enemy personnel were carried out. Panthermen's deadly artillery eventually bombed the Lorient pocket back into the Stone Age breaking the fighting spirit of the Germans. General Fahrmbacher commander of German forces surrendered to the 66th's General Herman Kramer on May 8, 1945 and General Junck, commander of the enemy forces in St. Nazaire surrendered on May 11, 1945. The war was over in Europe. After occupation duty in Germany and operating processing camps in Southern France, the 66th Division was deactivated without any ceremony on November 8, 1945. Many Panthermen were transferred to the famous 42nd Rainbow Division for occupation duty in Austria. Here, the story continues.
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BASEBALL HEROS FROM THE SS Leopoldville.
Howard “Howie†DeMartini
Date and Place of Birth: October 21, 1914 Northvale, New Jersey
Date and Place of Death: December 24, 1944 English Channel
Baseball Experience: Minor League
Position: Pitcher
Rank: Staff Sergeant
Military Unit: Company F, 3rd Platoon, 262nd Infantry Regiment, 66th Division US Army
Area Served: European Theater of Operations
Howard DeMartini was a well-known player in Rockland County, New Jersey before WWII. He was a star athlete at Closter High School where he excelled in baseball and basketball.
Born October 21, 1914 in Northvale, New Jersey, his brother, Bill, was a spitballer in the old days and Howie played semi-pro baseball with George Garecht’s Tappan Community nine until signing with Beatrice Blues of the Nebraska State League in 1937. DeMartini finished the year with an unimpressive 4-5 won-loss record and returned to semi-pro baseball for the following two seasons.
In 1939, DeMartini was brought to Frank Snyder at the Polo Grounds for a tryout by his brother, Detective DeMartini of the New York Police Force. Snyder was liked what he saw and DeMartini was assigned to Milford Giants of the Eastern Shore League for 1940. He had a superb season, posting a 2.74 ERA and a 16-6 won-loss record.
On Christmas Eve 1944, Staff-Sergeant DeMartini was among 2235 American soldiers from the 66th Infantry Division who boarded the troopship SS Leopoldville bound for France. In the dead of night, and just five miles from the port of Cherbourg in France, the Leopoldville was spotted by German U-boat U-486. Oblt. Gerhard Meyer launched torpedoes at the huge vessel. F Company were quartered where the torpedo struck and of 175 troops assigned to the company, only 19 survived. The body of Staff Sergeant Howard DeMartini was among 37 of 3rd Platoon never found. Everything that could went wrong. Emergency calls for help were mishandled, rescue craft were slow to the scene and the weather was unfavorable. 763 American soldiers died that night, making this the worst loss an American Infantry Division suffered from a U-boat attack during the war. U-486 was later sunk by torpedoes from the British submarine HMS Tapir on 12 April, 1945 in the North Sea.
Howard DeMartini was awarded the Purple Heart posthumously. In 1980, he was inducted into the Bergen County Baseball Hall of Fame. His sister, Mrs Charlotte Nealy, proudly accepted the award on his behalf.
Leonard Berry
(Sorry no picture available)
Date and Place of Birth: 1917 Bowman, South Carolina
Date and Place of Death: December 24, 1944 English Channel
Baseball Experience: Minor League
Position: Pitcher
Rank: Sergeant
Military Unit: Company B, 264th Infantry Regiment, 66th Infantry Division US Army
Area Served: European Theater of Operations
Leonard E "Link" Berry was born in Bowman, South Carolina in 1917. He was signed by the Macon Peaches of the South Atlantic League in 1937 and went to the New Bern Bears of the Coastal Plain League the same year where he had three wins and three losses. In 1938 he was 12-4 with the Bears, and was 18-9 in 1939. His fourth season at New Bern produced a 17-8 record and 3.08 ERA, prompting his sale to the Charleston Rebels of the South Atlantic League where he was 12-14 in 1941. When he entered military service with the Army in June 1942, Berry was placed on the National Defense Service List of the Southern Association's Nashville Vols.
Berry served with Company B, 264th Infantry Regiment, 66th Infantry Division, and arrived in England in November 1944. On Christmas Eve 1944, Sergeant Berry was among 2,235 American soldiers from the 66th Infantry Division who boarded the troopship SS Leopoldville bound for France. In the dead of night, and just five miles from the port of Cherbourg in France, the Leopoldville was spotted by German U-boat U-486. Oblt. Gerhard Meyer launched torpedoes at the huge vessel. Everything that could went wrong. Emergency calls for help were mishandled, rescue craft were slow to the scene and the weather was unfavorable. 763 American soldiers died that night including Sergeant Leonard Berry, making this the worst loss an American Infantry Division suffered from a U-boat attack during the war. U-486 was later sunk by torpedoes from the British submarine HMS Tapir on 12 April, 1945 in the North Sea.
"Uncle Link's mother, Metta Berry, died never having known exactly how her son died," explains Rhonda Berry, the wife of Leonard's nephew, Jerald Berry. I believe she died sometime in the 1970s ... the military was so embarrassed about the entire Leopoldville incident that the details of what happened were not revealed for quite some time which would explain why his mother never knew how her son died."
"Uncle Link's baseball legacy lives on within the Berry family, though," says Rhonda Berry. "My husband was a good high school player (pitcher) and our own son, Rhett Berry, is now playing Junior College baseball with the desire to continue playing as far as his talent will take him. Uncle Link is Rhett's "touch stone" and when he learned of his playing and his sacrifice for his country, he has inscribed Uncle Link's initials in every baseball cap he has worn since he started playing high school ball."
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Pictures taken during dive to the SS Leopoldville. Taken by Vic Verlinden.