Comments by "Colonel K" (@Paladin1873) on "USS Roper and the U-85" video.

  1. Regarding the USS Roper's rescue of survivors of the torpedoed steamer, the ship was actually the SS City of New York. According to uboat.net, "One of the passengers was Desanka Mohorovicic, the pregnant wife of an attaché to the Yugoslav consulate in New York, who travelled [sic] with her daughter Vesna. Luckily the ship’s surgeon, Leonard Hudson Conly, had followed her into the same boat and delivered the baby in the bottom of the lifeboat that was tossed about in 15 foot waves, even though he himself had two broken ribs." The name New York must have an ominous one, for a different ship, the British registered coastal steamer New York, was torpedoed and sunk in October of 1942. Tragically, many of her survivors were lost the next day when one of the rescue ships, HMS Veteran, was sunk with the loss of all hands while attempting to rescue some of the New York's survivors.
    1
  2. Regarding the USS Roper's rescue of survivors of the torpedoed steamer, the ship was actually the SS City of New York. According to uboat.net, "One of the passengers was Desanka Mohorovicic, the pregnant wife of an attaché to the Yugoslav consulate in New York, who travelled [sic] with her daughter Vesna. Luckily the ship’s surgeon, Leonard Hudson Conly, had followed her into the same boat and delivered the baby in the bottom of the lifeboat that was tossed about in 15 foot waves, even though he himself had two broken ribs." The name New York must have an ominous one, for a different ship, the British registered coastal steamer New York, was torpedoed and sunk in October of 1942. Tragically, many of her survivors were lost the next day when one of the rescue ships, HMS Veteran, was sunk with the loss of all hands while attempting to rescue some of the New York's survivors.
    1