World War II veteran John Lynwood Smith dies at 89

John Lynwood Smith, a survivor of the World War II German air attack that sank the HMT Rohna, resulting in the largest loss ever of U.S. troops at sea, was laid to rest Sunday in Amelia Presbyterian Church cemetery in Amelia Courthouse.

The Winston-Salem, N.C., resident, who retired in 1983 as senior vice president and manager of the Amelia office of Central Fidelity Bank, died Thursday at Forsyth Medical Center in Winston-Salem of complications after surgery for a broken hip. He was 89.

The Halifax County native was among 2,000 American troops bivouacked aboard the Rohna, an aging British freighter-turned-transport-ship, as it steamed east through "Suicide Alley" in the Mediterranean on Oct. 26, 1943, en route to the Far East via the Suez Canal.

German bombers located the convoy about 4:20 p.m. About an hour later, after a fierce encounter, a Luftwaffe bomber unleashed a Henschel Hs293 radio-controlled glide bomb that smashed a 60-foot hole in the Rohna.

Troops, who had been ordered below deck for their safety, struggled to escape the inferno after the missile exploded. When lifeboats were found rusted or painted securely to their moorings, soldiers clambered down ropes pitched over the sides of the ship and fell into a sea awash with bodies.

During a desperate night, some were killed as the stern of a rescue ship accidentally pounded them in rough seas, and others died as they clung to flotsam and one another in frigid waters.

The ship sank stern-first north of BéjaIa, Algeria.

Of the 1,138 troops, crew and Red Cross personnel immediately lost, 1,015 were American. More later died of wounds, making an estimated total of 1,192 -- more than died on the USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor.

Survivors came under a gag order, and full details of the Rohna attack came to light only after the introduction of the Freedom of Information Act in 1967, presumably because the Allies did not want the Germans to realize how effective their weapon was.

Mr. Smith served with Headquarters 105th Air Force in the air-inspection office in China, Burma and India. He returned home in 1946 and began a career in 1946 at the Bank of Halifax.

Anne Stupka, one of Mr. Smith's daughters, said her father did not talk about his war experiences when she was growing up. "When he did talk about it, it was with a lot of sadness because there were a lot of lives lost," she said.

He helped write his obituary, saying: "He always lived a life of gratitude because he was spared by his Maker" in the sinking of the Rohna, Stupka said.

Mr. Smith served as a trustee, Sunday-school teacher and deacon at Amelia Baptist Church. He also had served as a trustee of Bluefield College and was a Mason. Mr. Smith was a member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, American Legion and CBI (China, Burma and Indian) Veterans.

In addition to his daughter, survivors include his wife of 67 years, Frances Anderson Smith; two other daughters, Rebecca Rose of Richmond and Kathryn Chadbourne of Walnut Cove, N.C.; a sister, Lucy Nichols of Richmond; and six grandchildren.