Below is an excerpt from the Rhona Survivors Memorial Association website.
The Rohna Survivors Memorial Association
"On November 26, 1943, during WWII, one thousand, one hundred and thirty eight men perished when a British troopship, 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."
My wife's grandmother mentioned a few times, how she lost her brother during WWII, when his troop ship, was sunk presumably by a German submarine. She was frustrated that very few details about the sinking were released.
I'm ashamed that I didn't dig for this earlier. I found the website last week, while thinking of her, the night before her burial. (I found her brother's name in the casulty list.) She passed away at the age of 97 years. I'm sure she knows the truth now anyway.