This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Surnames: Anctil Classification: Military Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/an/Gl.2ADIB/11 Message Board Post: Are you related to Ronaldo J. ANCTIL? If so, do you know how he and over 1,000 soldiers died during World War II? Excerpted from The Rohna Survivors Memorial Association website: http://www.rohna.org/ "On November 26, 1943, during WWII, one thousand, one hundred and thirty eight men perished when the HMT Rohna, was attacked from the air and destroyed in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Algeria. Two important but virtually unknown historical events occurred at that time. It was the first successful "hit" of a merchant vessel at-sea carrying US troops by a German remote-controlled, rocket-boosted bomb, thus giving birth to the "Missile Age", and it resulted in the greatest loss of troops (1015) at sea in U.S. history. Combined with the loss of ship's crew and officers, and three Red Cross workers, more lives were lost than on the USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor. The "hit" was so devastating that the U.S. Government placed a veil of secrecy upon it. The events which followed were so shameful that the secrecy continued for decades until recently, when documents were grudgingly released under pressure of the Freedom of Information Act. The government still does not acknowledge this tragedy, thus most families of the casualties still do not know the fate of their loved ones." See the CASUALTY list from The ROHNA: http://bellsouthpwp.net/j/f/jfievet/casualty.htm