Vegas
04-06-2009, 12:32 PM
http://www.alamogordonews.com/ci_12074636
James Wheeler kept a secret for nearly 60 years, but it wasn't the type of secret people keep to protect themselves from ridicule.
Far from it, in fact.
He was instructed by his superior officers in the U.S. Army to keep it. His parents never knew and he never told his wife of 35 years, Ruth Ann Wheeler, who died in 1992.
Wheeler, of High Rolls, will celebrate his 90th birthday today. He is a World War II veteran who was part of what many historians have called "the largest loss of United States troops at sea."
More than 1,000 U.S. troops died, yet not many Americans know about it. You won't find one word about it in history books. Alamogordo High School's two junior U.S. history classes, taught by Darrel Renfro, were fortunate to hear him finally talk about it Friday.
Wheeler was a member of the Nebraska National Guard and an infantryman aboard the British transport ship HMT Rohna when it was attacked Nov. 26, 1943, by German bombers as it traveled through the Mediterranean Sea. The ship was part of a convoy en route to China, Burma and the India Theatre of war.
"It was the day after Thanksgiving," Wheeler said. "I remember that."
HMT Rohna was one of 24 ships traveling north of Algeria when German bombers attacked. Most of the ships escaped the incident relatively unscathed, until a lone German bomber made one last run and targeted HMT Rohna.
That's when Wheeler, who was loading artillery shells - British 12-pounders, he called them - into one of the
James Wheeler kept a secret for nearly 60 years, but it wasn't the type of secret people keep to protect themselves from ridicule.
Far from it, in fact.
He was instructed by his superior officers in the U.S. Army to keep it. His parents never knew and he never told his wife of 35 years, Ruth Ann Wheeler, who died in 1992.
Wheeler, of High Rolls, will celebrate his 90th birthday today. He is a World War II veteran who was part of what many historians have called "the largest loss of United States troops at sea."
More than 1,000 U.S. troops died, yet not many Americans know about it. You won't find one word about it in history books. Alamogordo High School's two junior U.S. history classes, taught by Darrel Renfro, were fortunate to hear him finally talk about it Friday.
Wheeler was a member of the Nebraska National Guard and an infantryman aboard the British transport ship HMT Rohna when it was attacked Nov. 26, 1943, by German bombers as it traveled through the Mediterranean Sea. The ship was part of a convoy en route to China, Burma and the India Theatre of war.
"It was the day after Thanksgiving," Wheeler said. "I remember that."
HMT Rohna was one of 24 ships traveling north of Algeria when German bombers attacked. Most of the ships escaped the incident relatively unscathed, until a lone German bomber made one last run and targeted HMT Rohna.
That's when Wheeler, who was loading artillery shells - British 12-pounders, he called them - into one of the