German's son gives apology to WWII vets
 
 

Quote  Sunday, May 22, 2005, 12:00 A.M. Pacific

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  German's son gives apology to WWII vets

  By Tan Vinh
 Seattle Times staff reporter

 

  The Alaska fisherman with the uneasy smile and a burden on his conscience peered uncomfortably into the room of old soldiers.  

    Ludger Dochtermann, 62, wasn't sure he could look the veterans in the eye.

   How to explain that his father was the German bomber pilot who was responsible for sinking the British vessel HMT Rohna, which killed 1,149 soldiers, including 1,015 Americans, during World War II?

   How could he bring back the lost years for the sons and daughters who grew up not knowing their fathers because of what his father had done?

  How could he be here — the 10th reunion of The Rohna Survivors Memorial Association at the DoubleTree Hotel in SeaTac, in front of the 140 survivors and family members who had lost loved ones in one of the worst-ever U.S. maritime tragedies?

   Dochtermann felt uneasy, but he flew from his home in Kodiak, Alaska, to help close a chapter for himself, the survivors and their families. So Dochtermann entered the room.

   One by one, he looked them in the eye yesterday, read out loud their full names on their name tags, shook each man's hand and then apologized. The tears rolled down his face.

    "I stand here because I want to apologize," he told a handful of veterans who gathered around him.

   The old soldiers patted him on the back, told him no hard feelings, and for the next two hours, they shared the tragedy of 60-some years ago.

  The sinking of the Rohna was considered one of the country's most devastating losses during World War II, and for a half-century, it was one of the nation's best-kept secrets.

  The day after Thanksgiving in 1943, a converted British cargo ship HMT (His Majesty's Transport) Rohna was on the Mediterranean Sea, off Oran, Algeria, heading toward the Suez Canal, bound for Bombay, India. Most of the 2,000 troops on board were U.S. Army.

  Dozens of German bombers attacked the convoy, led by Hans Dochtermann, who put his bomber in position before a comrade launched a guided missile that hit the Rohna's engine room.

  It was the world's first "smart bomb," and the U.S. government didn't want the Germans to know the devastation the new weapon had caused, nor did it want to hurt public morale.

   Those who survived the cold water and swam to a nearby vessel were told the events of that day were classified. Many veterans died still carrying that secret.

   The Rohna tragedy was the second-worst U.S. naval disaster of World War II, after the sinking of the USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor.

   In 2000, then-U.S. Rep. Jack Metcalf, R-Langley, pushed through a resolution to acknowledge the tragedy and to honor the men who went down with the Rohna.

   

  Immigrated in 1961

  In 1961, Ludger Dochtermann immigrated from Germany toOlympia. He enrolled at Centralia College, where he met his first wife. The couple had two sons, and helater became a fisherman in Alaska.  Because the Allied forces kept the Rohna incident classified, he said his father, Hans Dochtermann, never knew the extent of the devastation until 1995, when historian Carlton Jackson tracked him down in southern Germany to interview him for his book, "Forgotten Tragedy."

   Ludger Dochtermann, who by that time considered himself as patriotic as any American, felt ashamed that his father had played a role in the tragedy.

   Hans Dochtermann, a retired salesman who spent his later years in Frankfurt, Germany, before his death in July 1999, often told his son and grandsons that he felt guilty every day for devastating thousands of families, his son said. But that was war, he'd say, and he'd had a job to do.

  Last year, Ludger's son Shawn, 41, of Kodiak, Alaska, attended the Rohna reunion in Washington, D.C., to apologize. This year, his other son, KC, 40, of Bellevue, greeted the survivors during the five-day reunion.

  Like his father, KC was anxious. He remembered thinking, " 'Do I really belong here? Do I have any right to come to this room with these people and sit and look them in the face knowing what my family did?' " But, he added: "We owe them the honor and the closure."

  James Bennett, 76, who lives at Snoqualmie Pass, wrote "The Rohna Disaster: WW II's Secret Tragedy" after his brother, Robert, died on the ship. Earlier this week, he introduced KC to the survivors.

   "I like you to meet KC Dochtermann. He is the man whose grandfather taught you how to swim."

   Yesterday, it was Ludger Dochtermann's turn to meet the survivors. He felt guilty for taking the spotlight, but the veterans said they understood that tragedy was part of war, that his father was following orders.

   "I want to let him know there [are] no hard feelings," said Gus Gikas, 84, of San Antonio, who was on lookout duty that day in 1943 and spotted the German bombers.

    "It is time to move on. You don't hold a grudge that long. There is nothing to be gained. Life is too short."

  By early afternoon, the veterans pulled Dochtermann into their circle for group pictures, and the men posed smiling with hands wrapped around one another's shoulders.

   Tan Vinh: 206-515-5656 or tvinh@seattletimes.com

   

   
 from:
 http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002284013_rohnasurvivors22m.html
 

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