Country Connections By James and Ellen Perry
The sun had made its daily trip through Southeast Alabama and had set in the west. Everyone that night in the Elmer Hunter home near Columbia, Alabama, was enjoying supper, and after eating, cleaned the table, washed the dishes and retired to the center room to sit around the fireplace while listening to the radio, talking small talk and getting ready to retire to bed.
Tomorrow was important to the Hunter family as tonight was Christmas Eve. It was December 24, 1944. Little Sis, as my mother was called, was three months pregnant, and when this child was born, he would be the first grandchild for the Hunter family. At this time the medical people could not tell if it would be a boy or girl. You took what you got from God and cherished the child.
Bob Wills with Tommy Duncan singing and the Texas Playboys on instrumental had just recorded “Silver Dew on The Bluegrass Tonight” which would become a #1 hit a few weeks later as a World War II tune in 1945. Johnnie Hunter had married Jesse Perry from Union County, Tennessee, in September of 1944. At the time they met, Jesse was training at Camp Rucker, Alabama.
He met Johnnie at the 5 & 10 Cents store in Dothan, Alabama, and three weeks later they tied the knot, not knowing he would be heading to England to join General Patton's 3rd Army to bolster Patton’s push toward Germany and cleaning up the “3rd Reich.”
It was 6 p.m. central time in Southeast Alabama and 1 a.m. in Cherbourg, France. The Hunter family in Southeast Alabama and the Arthur Perry Family in Sharps Chapel, Tennessee, had no idea of the terrible events happening at this time five miles off the coast of Cherbourg, France, in the English Channel. The water temperature was 42 degrees with seas running 6 to 8 feet.
The Belgium liner Leopoldville that had been converted to a troop transport ship was sinking with approximately 2400 American soldiers on board. Of the 2400 soldiers 802 would die within minutes. A German submarine U-boat #486 had entered the English Channel earlier that day and waited for the Leopoldville and British troop ship, Cheshire, to get within torpedo range. The German submarine fired two torpedoes at the Leopoldville with one hitting the ship five miles off the coast of Cherbourg, France, killing 300 soldiers immediately with 500 more dying within the next hour.
All the military brass in Cherbourg, France, were drunk or getting drunk at Christmas Eve parties. Finally, someone took control and sent an ocean tugboat to help some soldiers trying to swim in the frigid water: most with heavy winter army issue clothes on. My father, Jesse Perry, broke ranks and timed another smaller ship that had come along side of the Leopoldville, then jumped onto the smaller ship which was about 30 feet below the Leopoldville. The jump saved his life but injuries from it remained with him for the rest of his life.
At the explosion of the torpedo the Congolese crew of the Leopoldville took the lifeboats and left the ship. This caused many fatalities of the US soldiers in two ways: One, the Congolese crew were supposed to try and get injured US soldiers into the lifeboats; and two, by taking the lifeboats, the Congolese crew left the davits extended which kept the rescue boats from closing with Leopoldville to take the US soldiers from the sinking ship. This cowardly action by the Congolese crew caused the loss of at least 300 American soldiers' lives. The captain of the Leopoldville, Charles Limbor, who was Belgian, remained standing at the bridge and gave no orders during the sinking of the Leopoldville. He went down with the ship. The survivors were taken to Cherbourg. The evacuation of the Leopoldville was terrible with no officers taking control. Only the NCO’s and sergeants organized and conducted the evacuation until the Leopoldville sank. There were many heroes that horrible night, American and English. Some survived. Some lost their lives saving the lives of others.
Many of the survivors arriving in Cherbourg were left to fend for themselves. Others, after suffering exposure in the cold waters of the English Channel, were put in tents or any buildings offering shelter on this cold December night. My father, Jesse Perry, who had trained tank commanders before being put in the 3rd of General Patton was placed into a military police unit in Cherbourg.
He had shot one of the Congolese crew of the Leopoldville for robbing and severely injuring an old Frenchman and his wife who ran a wine shop. My father heard screams from the wine shop and saw the Congolese crew man run from the shop carrying bottles of wine. He ordered him to stop. He did not, so my father shot him with his army issue 45 cal. pistol. No body was ever found.
I was born six months later. After he left the army in 1946, my father and mother moved to my father’s home area. They had four sons, bought land in Union County and started a farm. They are both gone now as well as my youngest brother, Dennis Perry.
The tragedy and utter stupidity that led to the debacle of the sinking of Leopoldville with the loss of 802 lives that Christmas Eve night in 1944 was covered up by our government and military for 30 years as if it never happened. My father knew it happened because he was there.
The Christmas gift was to my family as we had a father who came back from such a tragedy as the Leopoldville. My father gave us a rural farm life on the banks of Norris Lake. We were taught how to work, respect our elders and to be self-sufficient. Sadly, today the young boys only know cell phones and technology and most live in subdivisions with no woods to explore, no lake to fish and swim in, and no chores to do. In other words, the kids today live in a plastic world.
Many thanks to Clive Cussler and his crew for finding the Leopoldville lying on the bottom of the English Channel, and he found the German U-boat #486, also. Most of what I've written was told to me by my father over my early years. Some atrocities by the Germans I cannot write about. The balance was from Clive Cussler’s book “The Sea Hunters,” which contains the chapter on “The Sinking of the Leopoldville.”