Daniel Niederheiser

Dan Neiderheiser was born in 5 Dec 1925 to Louis and Sarah Neiderheiser.  The family lived way up Cow Creek in a piece of property surround by the Umpqua National Forest.  Dan went to school in Glendale but one of his good friends and neighbor was the late Robert “Zeke’ Wright who lived a short distance away in Tiller.  In 1941, when World War II started Dan was only 15 but as so many others his age, the war lasted long enough and events continued that would eventually play out requiring him to pay the ultimate sacrifice in one of the biggest cover-ups of the last century.  It’s unknown whether Dan enlisted when he turned 18 in 1944 or whether he was drafted, but what is known is that by the middle of the year he was a private in the Army as an Infantryman serving in the 264th Infantry Regiment, 66th Infantry Division.

 The 66th Infantry Division was activated April 15, 1943 at Camp Blanding FL.  On August 17, 1943 the division moved to Camp Joseph T. Robinson AR, and on to Camp Rucker AL on April 7, 1944.  Dan probably joined the unit while stationed in Alabama.  In November of 1944 the 66th Infantry Division began moving out of Camp Rucker, Alabama to Camp Shanks in New York.  This was in preparation for the Division to move into England and then to France.  Dan and all of his fellow soldiers were put on the USS George Washington.  The USS George Washington, a 37,000 ton (displacement) troop transport, was built in Germany before World War I and seized at Hoboken, New Jersey at the beginning of the WWI.  It is uncertain, but possible that some of the men from Glendale serving in that war crossed the Atlantic on the same ship as Dan.  After that war she returned to commercial employment as the American flag liner until converted back to a troop carrier for WWII.  After the crossing, Dan and his fellow soldiers landed in England were housed and camped in an area near Dorchester in the county of Kent.  There they waited in preparation for serving as reinforcing troops at the Battle of the Bulge.

After several weeks of waiting Dan’s unit was told to prepare to move out for a crossing of the English Channel to France.  Everything associated with the troop movement was marked with disorganization and miscommunication.  Finally on 23 December they were told to move to the docks and board the SS Leopoldville.  Their half-prepared Christmas dinners were thrown away, duffel bags were packed, and the troops headed out to the harbor.  Typically, the initial rush was followed by a six-hour wait on the docks.  When boarding finally began at two in the morning on 24 December, it seemed to follow no clear plan.  Dan’s regiment and another one were mixed together and companies were separated, platoons randomly distributed throughout the 501-foot Leopoldville and on the other troop transport of the convoy, SS Cheshire, groups of men simply ordered to board as they appeared rather than by unit.  This situation fragmented the command structure, contributing to an atmosphere of confusion and chaos.  No lifeboat drill was performed and the life belts were secured in their stowage compartments.  None were issued to the men onboard.

It was to be a short voyage across the English Channel and they finally got underway during the day of Christmas Eve.  To date, the Leopoldville had already carried nearly 125,000 soldiers to various destinations without trouble and, because of there being so many Allied warships in the Channel, no one seemed too worried about the possibility of submarine attacks.

Around 2 PM, the Captain of the Leopoldville received the order to begin a zigzag course.  A first submarine alert sounded thirty minutes later then a second one.  By then, the sea was running eight to nine feet and the wind was blowing about at 25 knots with the Leopoldville but 25 miles from the port of Cherbourg, France.  Down in the ship Dan and his fellow soldiers would have been trying to keep from getting sea-sick, continuing to endure the bouncing and hammering of the waves on the ship’s hull, and praying for a speedy and safe arrival at their destination.  But it was not to be.

By 6 PM, the Leopoldville was five miles from Cherbourg.  Some fifteen minutes earlier, a German submarine had begun tracking the Leopoldville in its sight.  Two torpedoes were launched at 5:56 PM and one reached its mark at precisely 6 PM.  From that moment on, it was bedlam.  Duffel bags and other gear would have been knocked in all directions.  The air would have filled with the smell of gun powder.  Inside the ship it was very dark and men would have been scrambling to make sense of what had happened while trying to find their personal equipment.  What has been repeatedly described is that the men onboard the Leopoldville received little, if any, help nor directions from the crew.  The Captain of the Leopoldville did nothing!  No distress message, no call for assistance, nothing.  

The torpedo struck the Leopoldville on the starboard side aft and exploded in Number Four Hold. Compartments E-4, F-4 and G-4 were flooded and stairways were blown away, but a few of the three hundred men in those compartments managed to escape to higher decks.  Men in other parts of the ship who felt the blow knew it for what it was and began to make their way to the deck.  There they lined up in formation and waited for instructions.

Instructions were given, but not to the infantrymen. A series of contradictory messages over the loudspeaker announced variously that a tug was on the way; that men would be transferred to other ships at sea; and that the ship was not sinking.  At the same time some lifeboats were launched but many of the men that made it up onto the deck simply jumped into the waves far below.  It is not known whether Dan made it off the ship or perished inside the ship.  The HMS Brilliant, one of the British destroyers that had been escorting the ship came along side in an attempt to take on survivors.  This was a difficult task, because the empty lifeboat davits were out on the port side, and two lifeboats were swung out on the starboard side.  Brilliant was forced to crush these boats in order to close the sinking ship.  A lively sea repeatedly bashed the two vessels together, then drew them apart.  One by one, hundreds of men took their turn to attempt the leap from the Leopoldville to the destroyer forty feet below; the majority succeeded but with many broken bones, while others mistimed their jumps and were crushed to death as the two hulls came together.  The Brilliant succeeded in getting nearly 700 survivors off the Leopoldville.

Meanwhile just five miles away those ashore who could have been of some help in the rescue were celebrating Christmas Eve or were away on leave.  No one in Cherbourg knew there was any problem so it came as a complete surprise when the port authorities received a radio message from the Brilliant informing them they were taking on survivors and requesting assistance!  Oddly enough, the other three destroyer escorts headed for harbor after their futile attempt to sink the U-boat.  They had heard no call for assistance from the Leopoldville.  Fearing for the safety of his ship which by then had been much bandied about while rescuing the men from the Leopoldville, the Brilliant disengaged and made for Cherbourg.  The Leopoldville sank beneath the waves at 8:30 PM.  Only one of the ship’s officers, the Captain, from the Leopoldville lost his life.  The official death toll was established at 802 with 493 never found and no clear understanding of how many perished in the initial explosion, were trapped inside the vessel or washed up on the shore near Cherbourg for several days to come.  Those were buried in a common grave near the town.  The specifics of Dan’s loss are not known but it is assumed his remains were never recovered as his name is on the Tablets of the Missing at the Normandy American Cemetery in France.

Following this tragedy a decision was made to classify everything associated with it.  The official position was that disclosure would help the enemy but most people agree that the real reason this catastrophe was kept under wraps and not disclosed for many years was because it such a great embarrassment to the British & American Governments.  Finally after many years the facts came to light and information about Dan Neiderheiser’s ultimate sacrifice can be told.

Dan was one of but two Oregon soldiers on the Leopoldville and now his finally resting place is near the coast of France.  But while his mortal remains may never have returned to the community he loved and called home, the knowledge of his sacrifice will remain with us always.