Oddity Shop
This podcast examines the oddities of the world...Cryptids to Conspiracies, Cults to Curiosities, Myths to Mysteries, and so much more! Stop by the shop, where the bizarre is always on sale... Each week your curators, Kara Perakovic and Zach Palmer will be opening the shop and sharing stories with you.
Oddity Shop
Buried By History: The SS Leopoldville Tragedy
Welcome To The Oddity Shop, Where The Bizarre is Always on Sale. This week, your Curator Zach is talking about a WW2 Tragedy he found he has a personal connection to!
Have you ever experienced those spine-tingling moments when seemingly unrelated events align perfectly, revealing something profound you never knew you were searching for? That's exactly what happened during Zach's visit to Normandy, France.
The day began with a simple plan to tour the D-Day sites. Little did hhe know that weeks before his departure, a casual conversation with his mother would plant the seed for an extraordinary discovery. "I think we have family buried at that cemetery you're visiting, That cemetery was the Normandy American Cemetery, and that relative was John McGowan
Armed with just a memorial card and curiosity, what unfolded next was far beyond a typical cemetery visit. The staff welcomed him with unexpected ceremony, explaining that my relative was part of a classified World War II disaster that remained secret for over 70 years. The SS Leopoldville, carrying 2,200 American troops including John, was torpedoed by a German U-boat on Christmas Eve 1944, just miles from shore. In the chaos that followed, 763 soldiers perished – their stories immediately classified by military authorities to maintain morale during a critical phase of the war.
Have you uncovered unexpected family connections in your travels? Share your experiences with us, or join our Patreon community where we dive deeper into these historical mysteries that touch our personal lives in ways we never imagined.
References:
- https://www.honorstates.org/profiles/62632/?utm_source=chatgpt.com
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/66th_Infantry_Division_%28United_States%29?utm_source=chatgpt.com
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_L%C3%A9opoldville_(1928)
- https://www.abmc.gov/video/normandy-american-cemetery/?utm_campaign=Website
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I want to dance with the Malkman at the IA shop, Baked in the moonlight at the IA shop. Creep through the graveyard to the IA shop. The door's always open at the IA shop. Welcome back to the Oddity Shop, you little oddballs.
Speaker 2:The podcast where we tell you creepy, odd, weird, strange and bizarre stories from around the world. Where we tell you creepy odd, weird, strange and bizarre stories from around the world.
Speaker 1:I'm your curator, cara, and this is the greatest co-host slash curator zachary that's ever lived the greatest zachary that's ever lived. I want that written on my tombstone one day um, okay, side note do you see something right here Like somebody? Have you been seeing something?
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:Okay, no.
Speaker 2:Are you seeing something? Yeah?
Speaker 1:I keep seeing it, I saw it the whole time I was recording, like that last episode, like a shadow right here.
Speaker 2:Are you sure it's not your skeleton?
Speaker 1:No, no, no, no. It's on my blinds, like it's literally in this big open.
Speaker 2:It's not the tree that's out there, because when I stay in the room next that one, sometimes the shadow of that tree creeps me out. You don't have a tree or the bush or something, maybe I don't know.
Speaker 1:There's something no, there's nothing there. This is like I'm like, I'm seeing like a, you got a little friend. I do have a little friend. I was just wondering if.
Speaker 2:No, we'll keep an eye on over there oh yeah, well, now I'm gonna have to look.
Speaker 1:I don't know, I have to watch when I edit it because it becomes so blurry but then it gets really clear okay guys, maybe patreons will get my little ghosty back there okay anyway, that was a random, sorry. What's uh new boo boo?
Speaker 2:so remember how I told you that grass was doing really well. It did not. So like two-thirds of it took great and the spot that was the most shaded you would have thought like would have been protected totally washed away. We just got so much rain. When I left, I'm glad I cleaned up the entire yard.
Speaker 1:To come back to have to do it all again yeah, but can you imagine, if you didn't clean up the yard, it would have been just 10 times worse though, oh my god, it would have dude.
Speaker 2:It was like we pulled up to the house and I was literally embarrassed you was like oh, we want trash, oh yeah, no, we. We definitely had a different look than the rest of the neighborhood, but it's okay. I got it cleaned up today, it's fine, but a bunch of spiders came in the house too. Oh yeah, don't leave our house for like 13 days or however long I was gone.
Speaker 1:I don't know I I felt like you were gone forever, but then also I had just such a bad time, like a hard time, not because you were gone it was because I was gone well, at least that's what I tell myself to you, though you know, so it does right can't vent it out um, but I had just a really hard time.
Speaker 1:So the day that you came back, when you said just landed in detroit, I internally panicked because I was like how did two weeks go? No, like I kind of was like freaking out like, oh my god, I thought I had like another five days before you got back. Not that I needed more days, but it was just weird. It just went fast, it was so weird.
Speaker 2:I can't wait till the next time I see you, because I have like a bag of goodies for you and I'm excited about some of them. Some of them are just like your typical souvenir kind of stuff that you like have to do, but I am very excited about one part of it, so I think you're going to like it.
Speaker 1:Just one, you're gonna like it.
Speaker 1:Well, it's like three things from one place, but that's all I'm telling you for now a little teaser a little teaser um, oh, I do have something to tell you oh delilah got a stroller and it's the best thing ever, because it's one of the ones like you zip them in or just sit um you can zip her all the in but she just sits in and it can be open but she gets clipped in so she can't jump out. For those that don't know, my wonderful baby fucking hates walks since the day she was born. She is a pretty, pretty, pretty pretty princess and she wants to be carried everywhere.
Speaker 1:Yeah, she needs a carriage us and she wants to be carried everywhere. Yeah, she needs a carriage. So I love to go for walks and it's really hard because I feel so guilty coming home from work and then going for like an hour walk and leaving her here. It's just like parent guilt.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but she would hate it.
Speaker 1:I know, but like she likes it. If you take her into like woods and trails, totally fine, if you're just going for a damn walk, absolutely not. So I bought her this stroller. Aaron's like she's going to hate that. I said no, she's not. I know my child she's going to fucking love it because she loves the swing. So it's kind of like the same concept. You're just like kind of like you know. So I put her in it and I stroll all around the house.
Speaker 2:She gets to be the center of attention, of course, walked her all around the house and she fucking loved it.
Speaker 1:So I walked to the driveway, loved it. So I'm like cool. So then the next day I'm like we're going for a walk. So me and aaron did some yard work and then we went for a two and a half hour walk.
Speaker 2:We walked like four miles.
Speaker 1:We walked everywhere we walked through all these neighborhoods and we went to tracy and gary's house. We stopped and saw her grandpa. Literally just saw an orb where I just okay you do have a little friend today so I took her to see her grandpa. Then we walked all the way, not that you would know, but like to where our old house was across the street, because that's the um where aaron's grandma lives little old folks home.
Speaker 1:Then we strolled right on into the little old folks home and all the old people were like, oh my god. Then we tr Tracy was there doing her grandma's laundry. So then we went out and saw Tracy did laundry and then we walked all the way home and it was glorious. And then it's poured ever since and I haven't been able to take her again yeah, it's been super rainy. It's awful but Delilah has a stroller now and it's so much fun and everything's getting green.
Speaker 2:It's perfect. Yes, okay, even though today was cold. Oh yeah, it was a little on the chilly side, but it's supposed to be like in the 70s all next week yep, okay, what else you got for me?
Speaker 1:that's it, you got, that's it I do have a question.
Speaker 2:Okay, can you, and if you want to share it, you can. If you don't want to, but can you think of a moment where it's like a bunch of random, unrelated events turned into something that you just can't explain?
Speaker 1:it's not. Not that I don't want to share, but I just can't think of anything. But I feel like that's our lives, this happens to us like weekly.
Speaker 2:It's always so weird, though, and like jarring, when you kind of start to put all the pieces together.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm trying to think if I can think of one major thing, but right now I just really can't Well if it comes to you.
Speaker 2:You, and I'm sure you already will, but just interrupt me. Oh my god, it's not gonna come to me, but I feel like I know where we're going with this you. You might or you might not. I've given you the slightest teaser of this.
Speaker 1:This is something that even I I wasn't expecting well, I don't know, I'm not going, I'm just going off of, I think, like from your trip and what you kind of stumbled upon, but then I don't really know anything else.
Speaker 2:I'm assuming, yes, so it is from my trip, um and I'm gonna caveat this one before we even start of the fact that it is going to be a different episode for the oddity shop, of the fact that it's like there is a little bit of a mystery and a cover-up in here but it's not really ghosts, it's not really haunting, it's not any of that. It is just the weirdness of all these seemingly unrelated things that led me into a story that I never knew, okay that says what the oddity shop is.
Speaker 2:It's whatever weird things happen and it's gonna be like super personal, but also just strange, so I told you a lot about my vacation. I did not tell you this whole story, though, because I wanted to just share it with you, and after I talked to mom and made sure she was cool with me sharing the story oh okay, I decided I have to do an entire episode okay, denise one of the stops on the cruise was in.
Speaker 2:So we did two days in paris. One was on this like little beach town. It was amazing, it was just like a seaside beach place. It was the only day the weather was like in the 80s. But the other day was in the port of Le Havre, which is two hours from anything you could do. So it's in the Normandy region of France and you could either. So we had 10 hours at the port. One of the things you could do was take a two-hour bus ride into Paris and then what you spend like four hours there to take a two-hour bus ride back, that would have just been literally the biggest tease. So me and Julia were looking for other excursions and we booked off the ship a 10-hour tour of the D-Day site in Normandy Right, which is Heavy, yeah, so, so obviously 10 hours 10 hours, so it was an hour and 40 minute drive each way.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay, um, and then there was like there were four stops, so there's a little bit of driving in between. It did not feel like 10 hours, it flew by, but yeah, we, so we went back and forth. We're like, no, we're gonna feel really teased about paris and we're both kind of like history nerds anyway. So we decided to book it.
Speaker 1:Paris really doesn't do anything for me it.
Speaker 2:I've never heard anybody who went and they're like came back and was like, oh my god, it's great. Everyone always says it was really dirty.
Speaker 1:But the tower was cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's literally all I ever hear, okay so we booked this and we booked this months and months ago. Okay, there's four stops on the tour. The first one is la com, which is the german war cemetery. So there's like a bunch of cemeteries out there, which is interesting that they have the german war cemetery, since they were the baddies, obviously. Then the next up was at Pointe du Hoc, which is the German artillery site up on the cliffs that overlook Omaha and Utah Beach, which is where the D-Day invasion occurred.
Speaker 2:Okay, and then we did two stops along Omaha Beach. That was where all the US troops came in near the tail end of the war. That's what really turned and helped like liberate europe and really beat back the german forces. Right, and that's how the allies won the war. It's the largest seaborne invasion in history. Um, and then the fourth place it was listed as the saint laurent cemetery in colville surmer, which we're like cool cemetery at the end I didn't know. The other name for this is the Normandy American Cemetery, which has 9,400 soldiers from World War II and they're all American soldiers.
Speaker 1:Right, and this is all you really told me.
Speaker 2:Right, so I booked that. Like a couple of weeks before we went, months after we booked this, I was telling my parents about where we were going, like all the stops and everything, and so I told them about the Normandy I go and we're stopping at this place called St Laurent and mom goes wait.
Speaker 1:Is it St Laurent or St Laurent?
Speaker 2:It's probably St Laurent. There are going to be a lot of French words today, it's okay listen, I get to help you once in every 500 episodes. Yes.
Speaker 1:But it's St Laura.
Speaker 2:And especially since I was in France and heard everybody speaking so beautifully. I know I'm not going to do great- oh, so, beautiful.
Speaker 2:Oh God. So I told mom, though, about where we're going, and you know, mom has been doing the Ancestrycom thing for forever, right? So she goes, wait, I'm pretty sure we have family buried there, your grandma's cousin. That's wild, okay. So she sends me this card, and I'm gonna give you all the photos and videos for this episode, so I'll show you it now. It's a card uh, you probably can't see it that well, but it's basically a um info card of where in the cemetery he's buried oh, okay, yeah, like the plot, like the plot, or whatever yes, so it has his um service number and it says permanent cemetery, saint laurent, but down below it it says temporary cemetery and it has all the plot.
Speaker 2:So I know the information I have is not where he was actually buried, because he hadn't been moved yet.
Speaker 1:Gotcha um and his name is john mcgowan okay okay oh, maybe, maybe you're related to rose mcgowan I don't know that.
Speaker 2:Yes, you do help me tatum riley from scream oh, my god, okay, yeah, I shouldn't know, um, but I am related to, not rose, but lily mcgowan, who turns out to be, uh, john mcgowan's mother.
Speaker 2:Okay, so a different flower. Um. So anyways though, right, I'm like, okay, that's really cool, like I'm gonna take the photo. Then, like, while we're out there something to do, I'll go see if I can find his plot in the cemetery, right, I had no idea the rabbit hole this would send me down. I don't know if I can find his plot in the cemetery, right, I had no idea the rabbit hole this would send me down I don't know if I'm ready for this, yeah it.
Speaker 2:Oh man, okay, so we start the tour. The tour guide was great. The tour guide was great, he was kind of a sassy french man, um, and the way there. So it's an hour and 40 minutes. He does kind of go through all of the end of world war one, through the d-day invasion, like so much history. Admittedly, I did fall asleep for a little bit of it, I know, um, but it was really cute too, because when were you standing walking?
Speaker 1:it was a coach.
Speaker 2:It was a bus oh you're on the bus right there oh, the hour and 40 minute ride there okay so he knows this must happen, though, because he then turns on all the lights when they're about a half hour out and starts playing the song wake up little susie, and he goes for everyone who slept through the rest of this. This is when the tour starts to get good. That's hilarious that. So he starts then when we're getting close to the german cemetery, which, like really cool that the french made it, because obviously germans weren't that great, and this place has a big mound in the middle which is a mass grave, and then it'll have, like these volcanic stone tombstones and they're five crosses, and under every set of five crosses is 400 bodies. Like it looks like a really ancient cemetery, and it was like super cold and gray. It was just like it was very fitting. So that was the calm.
Speaker 2:Then we went up to the point du hoc, which is where, like, the germans had the big howitzers that they would fire like across 15 miles and they were taking out the ships that would have come in to the normandy beaches okay so this is the part where the americans had to, like, scale up a hundred foot cliffs into machine gun fire and take out the artillery before the invasion could actually happen, and you can walk through, like the german bunkers and the casemates, where it was all, and the crazy thing is is like this place is crater filled from all the artillery and because it's on top of a cliff that you can only go there. For about 10 or 15 more years it's been slowly eroding, oh wow.
Speaker 2:So it's like the history is just receding oh my god, that's really weird then we got back in the bus and we went to omaha beach, which is like the beach. Have you seen? Saving private ryan?
Speaker 1:forever ago.
Speaker 2:I couldn't even say anything about it the beginning 25 minutes of that, that's just all absolutely horrific of everyone storming the beach into mortar shells and machine gun fire and, like thousands of troops, die in a half an hour maybe I haven't actually seen all of it but well, that's d-day right yeah, yeah, yeah in your head, like you read about it in history books and everything we're pulling up and it's a little beachside town and people are walking their dogs on the beach and there's a little French bachelorette party and they do have all these monuments and reminders.
Speaker 2:But it's just For me. I was like the first two places were so somber and the third place it just felt really lively and me and Julia were talking about it. We're like well one. If France really honored all their World War II sites, they wouldn't have anything that they could live in.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And two it's like do we really want to let them win? Like it was a beautiful beach before the war.
Speaker 1:Right, that was really popular.
Speaker 2:It's tough. Yeah, it was really interesting. So the securing of the beach, though, right Horrific, right horrific. So 34 000 american troops came in the first wave, 160 000 allied troops all together storm across mines, obstacles, machine gun fire, like it's just horrible, horrifying, um, and that was where the us entered into world war ii, then the, and they gave us lunch there and like they had like handmade desserts and stuff.
Speaker 2:It was really cute oh so then we went into the saint laurent cemetery, which is the normandy american cemetery. Okay, this was like pulling up to the arlington national cemetery in dc, so we saw the german one, which looked like really not run down, but it was just really like a classical old cemetery. This place is immaculate like the grounds are the greenest grass you've ever seen. It's on the cliffs overlooking the beach. There's thousands upon thousands of marble crosses. Or for the jewish who were buried there, they had um the star david instead of the cross reflection pools, giant statues like manicured hedges, it's breathtaking.
Speaker 2:So we're pulling up there and it was like every stop he'd give us some more history and then let us go free roam for like a half hour or whatever.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay.
Speaker 2:Cool. And then we get back on the bus. So we're pulling up here and he goes, okay, so we're going to do an hour here. So you know everyone, we're going to go in this entrance over here you can walk around the cemetery. I'm like, oh cool, we'll be able to go find john's plot, you know. Oh yeah, yeah. And he goes. Uh, nobody on the bus has family buried here right. I raise my hand and go oh, I do, he goes. You need to go to that building over there okay, like information or like it is a like stone building with floor-to-ceiling glass windows.
Speaker 2:That looks insane. Okay, and I kind of hesitated at first. I was like, oh, you know, we'll, we'll just like walk around and find it like I don't you need to go to that building over there, you got orbs behind you now, boo-boo, okay um, so what's happening? We walk in through a security checkpoint. Okay, like the hottest frenchman I've ever seen, too at this security checkpoint Oui oui, so then it is like this place is ornate.
Speaker 2:Okay, so they are like, sir, if you would step up to the desk, we'll get some information from you, and it's like these people are dressed like very fancy. Oh, okay, and Were you nervous? I was, and here's the thing I only found out about my family member being buried there a few weeks before it went.
Speaker 1:I just mean like, because it's so like upscale, it was very official, yeah, and you're just like what the heck's happening and I like not imposter syndrome, but I was almost like there's a lot of people who come here for like really.
Speaker 2:You know, the grandpa died here. Yeah, yeah, or this or that, and Julia came with me.
Speaker 1:I don't think it's imposter syndrome, though, because you're taking a tour about the history as it is and then you happen to like have a family member that's buried there. I don't I get where you're coming from, though. Yeah, that would be.
Speaker 2:So we walk up to the desk and there's a really nice lady there said yeah, she goes, what's his name? So I pull out that picture and show him yeah, or show her that and she looks at, she starts typing and I'm holding my phone, again she goes. Can I see that again? Like, yeah, sure she looks at she goes, oh, okay, okay, this comes back up way later, totally unrelated to the rest of the story I'm telling you, but she turned like really white for just a minute and that's going to be the light thing that we ended on. So bookmark this because it's gonna get heavy in the middle.
Speaker 2:Oh my god. So she goes. Okay, I'm gonna go get some information, I'll be right back and she's gone for like five minutes. She comes back with this whole folder, um, and she goes. So you know who was this person? To you I said he was my grandma's cousin and she goes. Do you know how he died? And on this card it has his date of death listed as December 25th 1944.
Speaker 1:December 25th.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm. So I was like, well, judging by the dates, I would imagine it was probably the Battle of the Bulge, which started mid-December and went to mid-January, and it was like the Battle of the Bulge was kind of after Europe was starting to be liberated, the German forces were being pushed back. The Germans do this campaign back into europe. It was like their last ditch effort, you know, and she comes back. Actually, she asked me that before she went and she comes back and she goes. So I don't think that your family member died in the battle of the bulge.
Speaker 2:Um, she goes, but he likely died at sea and it was probably pretty horrific oh she introduces herself to uh, oh, first I go up to the desk right to, and I'm like, oh, bonjour. She says bonjour back. I looked at him like, do you speak english? She goes this is the american cemetery. Yes, so she introduces herself, she goes my name is matilda. Like matilda, but without the a matilda she was wonderful and, like everyone, was just very. They talked slowly, peacefully, very friendly because they know it's. You know, people are coming to you.
Speaker 2:It's a hard place to be so, um, she says okay, so if you're comfortable with it, what we would like to do is do a ceremony for your loved one. Oh, I was like. Oh, now I I'm like. Now you feel very imposter. Oh, yeah, I'm like I, I don't know. Like I was like we have a tour, I don't. Is it something that takes too long? Like I didn't even know him that well, she goes this is something you don't want to miss. Oh, julia was like I think I'm going to hang back. I looked at him like you knew him as well as I did. You're walking with her and she's kind of explaining how everyone set up. So their stones do have names carved into them, but it's hard to see and everyone's buried very randomly because it's supposed to be like nobody is different than the other.
Speaker 2:Okay, once they've given their life okay and she says you know, you know, there's 9,500 people here. There's also about 1,100 people on the wall of the missing Mm-mm, Like either they have some of their remains and haven't been able to identify them, or their remains haven't been found.
Speaker 1:The wall of the missing. That's so sad.
Speaker 2:We're walking and she goes, so we're getting sort of close to where John's buried. She goes, and so in his like square area because it's kind of set up in like squares Okay, are the Nyland brothers, who are the brothers that the movie Saving Private Ryan was loosely based on Probably two of the most famous graves there, about five rows up from him, and one of four females. So she, this part was also roped off, okay, because, like she said something like the grass wasn't holding, so people think that they can't go in there. You can. So she steps on the rope we cross over. She's showing us like how they kind of hid the markers and how to find the graves.
Speaker 2:So we walk up there and the whole time, by the way, she's carrying a bucket, okay, so I'd like to explain to you. You know, here's it, here's his stone, and says john mcgowan, private, uh, john mcgowan, 66th infantry. And she goes. I'm gonna explain the ceremony and then I'd, you know, like to have you do it and she goes. So what we do is we go and get sand from omaha beach okay, which is the beach.
Speaker 2:You know where d-day happened.
Speaker 1:She said this is where the americans yep and that so you can see down onto the beach.
Speaker 2:And this is what we do, is you take the sand and you rub it on the stone so it fills in all the carved names, so it becomes very visible, until this rain comes and washes the sand back down to the beach.
Speaker 2:So for some time you're commemorating him, you're bringing visibility to the stone. And then she said she has two flags an american flag and a french flag. You put the american flag on the left side of it. That points towards the beach to show how the Americans came from there to help win the war, and then the French flag to the right side to show like, hey, it points to the French where we came together to fight this off. So we do that, we wipe the sand on there, put the flags out and she's like you know, I'll kind of give you a minute and me and Julia are standing there. I don't know if I need the whole minute, you know like thank you, but this is really cool. And she, she starts to kind of put together at that point that it's not like a very close person to us, you know so.
Speaker 1:I don't want to interrupt you, but I don't know what the fuck is going on, because there are orbs being everywhere. I keep seeing by you, I keep seeing behind me. I don't know who be here. What are you doing right now?
Speaker 2:I'm just going to keep telling you the story.
Speaker 1:Okay, why are they here?
Speaker 2:Julia has pictures and videos of all this, by the way, and it was like it was really emotional, just not even one. It was bringing attention to a name who you know he likely hasn't been directly visited. I was just going gonna say that you could have been the first person I very well could have, and just being in this place, you're seeing just how much loss of life there was, you know, and this is only 9400 people like there are so many more, and so she goes.
Speaker 2:You know, uh, do you have some more time? I'd like to show you something. We look and really, yeah, so we're she goes, okay, so follow me. And we're like, yeah, so she goes, okay, so follow me. And we're walking with her and I looked at her and I'm like you have to have one of the coolest jobs in the world. And so she starts telling us about she gets to do this three or four times a day and that one of the best parts of her job is helping to identify the bodies on the wall of the missing. So they do like years and years of research on them to make sure they have a 99 match. Then they go and they exhume the body, test that body and are able to rebury them and give them a stone. I just literally busted open my shirt, apparently, so, yeah, she just leaned back.
Speaker 1:I'm like because I'm like, my eyes are water, I'm crying, there's orbs fucking everywhere and I guess I had to flash.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, anyways, we're telling her about us, she's telling her about, or you know, we're, yeah, learning about each other and matilda's great um and we're walking over. So she goes, this is the wall of the missing. She goes. I want to point something out, and this is where the 1100 names are of the people they're still trying to identify. Right, she goes because they have their remains okay, some they do, some they don't and they're either trying to find them or identify the remains and she said look around this wall for a minute and just you
Speaker 2:know, tell me what you see. Oh no, I said there's a lot of them are the 66th battalion, which is what john was a part of, and she said it's very rare. And not only that he was buried around such good company, she said, but that your family member was from this division, the 66th infantry, and has a stone. So I looked at her and I said, okay, do you know what happened? Like you said? I know you said it's pretty horrific, and it sounded like she didn't want to talk about it in that office.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so she goes again. She said it was, it was pretty awful, and all she really said was is that he was on a ship and that ship got hit by a torpedo from a German U-boat. It was after the war was winding down, on Christmas, and in this event, most of the 66th Infantry was lost, and because of the way they were lost, most of their remains were never found, and that's when she.
Speaker 2:you know we're looking at the wall of the missing and you see, just over a third of them are all from this one incident. So it was 493 of the 1,100 names. Wow, and you know these people are now kind of. The families are thinking their kids are coming home soon and they get notified right around Christmas.
Speaker 1:that Stop it.
Speaker 2:I have goosebumps Boat mishap. You know me, I'm like I have to know about this, so I start researching it. Oh, she did also say that the name of the ship was the Leopoldville.
Speaker 1:Leopoldville OK.
Speaker 2:Yes, I start researching on the way home and everything else. So here's the story. The 66th Infantry Division was a unit of the US Army and they arrived in Dorchester, england, on November 26, 1944, with some of the rest of the division coming in December 12th. So between the end of November, beginning of December, the division coming in december 12th, so between the end of november, beginning of december, they trained, they prepared for deployment and on december 24th they were supposed to be transferred from southampton, england, across the english channel to cherbourg, france okay uh, there are two transport vessels that they were loaded onto, one the ss cheshire, and the other one was a belgian ship called the leopoldville.
Speaker 2:Okay, so their primary objective was to destroy the remaining german troops left over in port cities in western france, as the german troops are retreating.
Speaker 2:So it was like the cleanup crew sort of yeah so the 66th infantry was split into one of those two boats and John McGowan, my grandmother's cousin, and about 2,200 others were led onto the Leopoldville History on the ship. The SS Leopoldville was a passenger liner originally that carried people between Belgium and the Congo, because the Congo at that point was a colony of Belgium Okay, Basically slaves. Let's be for real. The ship was 478 feet long. It was built in 1929. And during the war in May of 1940, she was converted to be a troop ship after the Germans invade Belgium and they become involved in the war. So it makes tons of treks during the war back and forth. It's not really meant for the colder parts of the ocean because it was going to africa. Um, she took some damage each time and all in all she did transport 124 220 troops oh, wow and was at normandy on d-day.
Speaker 2:Wow, yeah, very, very seen it, yeah. So, going back then to Infantry, basically, they would have been on the ship heading towards the Battle of the Bulge and then becoming the cleanup crew. So there were reinforcements late in the war and the 66th Infantry, when those who made it to the land were really successful and actually had very few casualties other than getting into the war. So they were harassing German installations, conducting limited objective attacks and then running recon missions and gathering intelligence. But the Leopoldville right. So what kind of happened here? So it's going from Southampton, england, to Cherbourg, france, like we said, on christmas eve.
Speaker 2:Troops are loaded really hastily into the ship. The crew, though, is mostly belgian or belgian congo, and they only speak flemish. Okay, I was captained by, uh, captain charles limbaugh, who spoke no english. There was a safety meeting that was rushed, um, and there were not enough life jackets on board, nor lifeboats. Okay, and the reason they kind of rushed the safety yeah, the safety of how to get into lifeboats and everything is because all these troops were really pissed off about getting loaded into a ship on 9 am on christmas eve. So it begins to make its way across the english channel. They're in a diamond formation with four other ships, so there are three other ships making a diamond of four. Okay, two destroyers the hms brilliant and hms anthony. These are english ships, okay, um. And then there was a, um, british frigate, which is just like a supply ship.
Speaker 1:Okay, okay. Where are we in this formation? Do you know?
Speaker 2:That I don't know Okay.
Speaker 1:I'm just trying to get a visual, yeah.
Speaker 2:So they're making their way across, and about five miles from the coast of Cherbourg, so they've already made it across the channel. They're very close to where they're going. At 5.56 pm, German U-boat number 486 sees the incoming formation, fires two torpedoes and one strikes the starboard side of the Leopoldville, resulting in an explosion in the number four hold that immediately kills about 300 men. Oh so the crew spring into action and they start giving orders on abandoning the ship okay however, remember, the crew doesn't speak english and the orders are only given in flemish.
Speaker 2:Oh, the troops do see the crew leave, but it wasn't sinking very quickly, so, not understanding what was happening, being so close to the shore, they thought that the crew was going to go get a um tugboat to tow them into shore. Only a handful of the troops actually get off with the lifeboats. Most of the rest of the formation they've been traveling with, they take off to try to chase down the u-boat. Oh, my god. So this is when the troops on board start to realize that things are not going very well and that the ship is sinking and it's sinking quickly yeah
Speaker 2:the waters are also very rough in this part of the channel. The hms brilliant, the british ship, though, does kind of realize what's happening, and they stay behind to help, so they pull up alongside the sinking ship. It gets really bad from here. So I found a write-up from a gentleman named jack dixon. He was a 21 year old seaman. He was on board the hms brilliant um and he was one of the crew members that battled against the condition to try to rescue as many of the soldiers as possible, and here's what's on his website the hms brilliant went alongside the port side of the troop ship um.
Speaker 2:We had our starboard fenders over the side. The sea cell swell was causing a rise and fall of 8 to 12 feet. The scrambling nets were hanging down the leopold's port side and US soldiers were coming down onto our upper deck. As the seas got rough, some of the men had to jump down from a height.
Speaker 2:The waters that evening were rough and cold, and the Leopoldville sat much higher in the water than the Brilliant. As the swells came up, what would be a 6 to 20 feet jump quickly became a 40 foot jump. Unfortunately, limbs were being broken when they landed on the torpedo tubes and other fixed equipment on the starboard side of the upper deck. Most who landed in the water were unfortunately crushed between the hulls of the two ships as they crashed into each other. To avoid any further injuries, if possible all of our hammocks were brought up from the mess decks below and laid on the starboard side upper deck to cushion the fall of the soldiers. As they landed, the hms brilliant and the uh leopoldville were sending out distress signals, but the rest of the escort had gone too far to see that as they were chasing down the u-boat, oh my god it took nearly an hour for the shore to realize the leopoldville was sinking.
Speaker 2:There were several hundred allied ship vessels in the harbor at cherbourg that could have come to save them oh my god had it not been the evening of christmas eve. They all had cold engines and they were all celebrating off the ship.
Speaker 1:Oh, my God.
Speaker 2:Not only were the engines cold, but the torpedo took out communications on the Leopoldville.
Speaker 1:So the English ship was on a different frequency than the American ships they were trying to reach.
Speaker 2:Oh my God the Brilliant had to contact Portsmouth, which telephoned Cherbourg, and then they tried to get ships to come to the rescue. So it was super, super delayed.
Speaker 1:This is so awful.
Speaker 2:I know. So approximately two and a half hours after being hit, the Leopoldville completely goes underwater.
Speaker 1:Oh goodness dark it's, it's, I was Also.
Speaker 2:I still don't know what's going on behind me with you know, this is. It's not somebody I knew, but it's a family member.
Speaker 1:Well, that's why I feel like. I feel yeah like, because it's your family.
Speaker 2:It's like it's just, and you know of how horrible world war ii is and I don't know why it took it putting into perspective of a bloodline to really drive that home.
Speaker 1:Oh my god.
Speaker 2:So of the 2,200 servicemen on board, 763 passed away on Christmas.
Speaker 1:Eve.
Speaker 2:Oh my god 505 on board either to the explosion, who went down, 248 from injuries, hypothermia or drowning, and the 493 names on the wall of the missing are from those who are never recovered from the 48 degree water oh my god, I am like crying yeah, captain charles limbaugh and three of the congolese crew members do go down with the ship and actually there's some rumors that Charles Limbaugh was trying to.
Speaker 2:He passed maybe helping try to pull some of the bodies out of the water. Ugh, so the cemetery is part of the American Battle Monuments Commission and they have this on their website. So on Christmas Eve 1944, a disaster happened in the Channel C, not far from Cherbourg. More than 2,000 American service members from the 262nd and 264th Regiments, 66th Infantry Division, were aboard the troop ship SS Leopoldville when it was torpedoed by a German U-boat and sank in the cold waters. Approximately 800 service members were killed that day and 500 were never recovered. They are remembered at the normandy american cemeteries tablets of the missing. The cemetery only contains 77 gravestones of members from the 66th okay, that's what I was gonna ask you, because she was.
Speaker 1:it's rare for your uncle, or what is he Cause? A grandma's cousin?
Speaker 2:I know it's my mom's second cousin. I think it would be my second once removed, if I'm correct.
Speaker 1:Well, your relative. She said it was rare that your relative was like buried or whatever. Is that just because everybody else was like?
Speaker 2:Because very few bodies were able to be identified or found yeah, okay which is actually my next line about matilda telling us it was rare.
Speaker 2:Um, now we know this story today. However, at the time this occurred, the english and british government go straight into secrecy. Oh so authorities classified the incident as confidential to protect troop morale. During the Battle of the Bulge, families were only told that their loved ones died in action. The reasons for the secrecy? One is the morale. It was a critical turning point during the war. High US casualties were already there and coming from basically negligent and logistic failures would not have been a good look Right. Negligent and logistic failures would not have been a good look right. Um, they thought because there was miscommunication between british and american forces that it might damage relations. And it was military failures. There was an untrained crew with not enough lifeboats for the troops they put on there and failed rescue efforts. So basically, christmas tail end of the war, families expecting their loved ones to come home just get absolutely devastating news.
Speaker 2:It was not until 1996 that this was declassified oh shit um, so thankfully, then, some books have come out and a lot of memorials have been put up for the legalopoldville 96. Yeah, it is one of the worst maritime disasters involving us troops of any time ever oh my god it took over 70 years before most families learned the full story of what happened to their loved ones that is fucked up so this would mean that my mother's great aunt Lily and great uncle William likely never knew the fate of their son.
Speaker 1:What yeah?
Speaker 2:So honestly like learning about that First of all. It's it's just so weird. The pieces fit together. I booked this randomly. It happened to end at that place. Mom happened to find this card on Ancestry.
Speaker 1:How weird.
Speaker 2:The other thing that's strange to me is why have I always been drawn to shipwrecks? So it was just. It seemed like one of those things where everything really came together and it was such a cool honor and retrospect to be able to share his story.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, especially since his parents never knew no, and to learn about it and to be able to do the ceremony to honor him. It's like the least I could do to I can't be crying this whole time I did talk to mom before deciding to write this yeah because you know, grandma, my grandma would have grown up with john yeah my mom was at. She remembers going to lily and you know aunt lily and uncle william's house like it's not like this.
Speaker 1:Is that far removed?
Speaker 2:no, oh. So we talked about this and she said you know, it doesn't feel. She said everything happens for a reason, it doesn't feel like it was just by chance no and so it was like and the tour guide too earlier I was like, hey, I'm just gonna walk around. Had I done that, I would have never learned the story like he's like no, you have to go to that yes, make sure you go to that building it was just that was like fate, or john, like something, had a hand in wanting the story to be told.
Speaker 2:I have goosebumps so I did want to do it. I wanted to do it with respect, um, but I also think you know it's. It's an interesting failure of of some of the like the terrible parts of war that weren't in direct. So with that, do you want to learn a little bit more about john? Because we found some stuff at the cemetery in the packet they gave us. Mom had some stuff online chat. Gpt was actually able to pull some stuff I'm gonna fucking cry.
Speaker 2:I don't think I could take it I know it honestly, I I feel you so from what we could put together. So he was two years older than my grandma and, like I said, they would have grown up together. He was born in Romulus, michigan, on September 28th 1926 to William and Lily. So how old? 18. Which I mean most of the boys from World War II were between 16 to 18. So many of them lied about their age to enlist that they were even younger.
Speaker 1:Oh, my god 18.
Speaker 2:So his father, so William was from Scotland, lily was from Canada. Originally. Father was an auto factory worker and a crane operator, his mom was a homemaker, and John was their only child. Oh my god, he grew up in Redford, though.
Speaker 1:Stop breaking my heart.
Speaker 2:Grew up in Redford, outside of Detroit. He did graduate, high school and now this is one of the cool things is and Mathilde showed us this on his stone with his number is he wasn't drafted for the war. He actually chose to enlist. That's even sadder, but it's amazing that he decided to make the sacrifice for his country because so many people world war ii, so many were drafted you know, so by his number.
Speaker 2:We do know that he enlisted out of the army on may 9th 1944, so already into the war, and the us entered world war ii. The d-day invasion happened on june 6th, so he knew we were entering the war. He enlisted from michigan and would have been stationed at fort sheridan in illinois where he held the rank of private. And then we do know his death date is december 25th 1944. Because of his service and his sacrifice, uh, private m Private McGowan was posthumously awarded several commendations, including a Purple Heart, a World War II Victory Medal, combat Infantryman Badge, american Campaign Medal and an Army Presidential Unit Citation. So he's now, like I said, he's interred at the Normandy American Cemetery in Colville, surmer, france, specifically plot F, row 19, grave number 12. That's the story about my family member.
Speaker 1:John McGowan. Wow, I'm like really so um, that's so sad I hate. You Did his family, though, get his purple heart and all his medals and awards. So this is what his family we don't know that's so sad.
Speaker 2:So william, on that temporary card that I have, william was listed as the next of kin, so he likely had it. But in that packet they gave us all this information on where we can go to look up more information. So we're gonna do that. And matilda said if you find anything, share it with us yeah, and we'll add him to the tours. Oh so, if you give the background information, so his legacy can live on a bit, so we're gonna do that yep oh my god, I can't stop yeah.
Speaker 2:So when she kept just saying it was pretty horrific and given a little bit of the details, the crazy thing was too. This is how well these people at the cemetery knew. She didn't look any of this up. She knew, and probably because there's 500 people on that wall. So I told you I would end it a little bit lighter. I know I see your eyes.
Speaker 1:When I first handed her my phone, I told you she looked at it, handed it back, looked at it again and it just had a very just strange look on her face okay, so explain to me matilda, how old do you think she is? So matilda is probably about our age. She has red hair.
Speaker 2:She's very sweet okay she was very reserved until she kind of realized that we weren't, it wasn't going to be a very emotional thing for us, okay. And then she started telling us so this is her summer job. Then she, uh, she teaches school. Uh, she's like a um tutor, basically not a tutor but uh like private teacher for one-on-one students, okay, and she's like I have the best job in the world. You know that.
Speaker 2:She was telling us about how she does three or four of these tours a day in the off season you know, she gets to help with the identifying of the bodies and she's been there when, like, the secret service and the president's come through, like she's just so proud of what she did and it was cool because we got her talking. Of course, you know me, we're walking how did she get?
Speaker 1:how do you get that job?
Speaker 2:I don't know we're walking, though I have to ask her. I'm like okay, so does anything strange happen here? She looks at me, she goes. I don't know. I've been told we have pretty quiet neighbors around us. But uh, she said, you know there's, there's some whispers. So anyways, on the bottom of that temporary card it says next of kin William McGowan. At the top it says John McGowan, but if you look at it really quickly it's plot number and then the name. It looks like it's William McGowan. So when we're standing at the wall of the missing, she goes. So I have to apologize for my reaction at first, gotcha, I started to get very excited.
Speaker 1:Oh, she thought she solved it.
Speaker 2:She's pointing out. So on that wall at the end of their name, if they have this medallion, okay, those are the people who are originally on the wall, whose remains have been identified.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:And the remains of a William McGowan had been identified two weeks prior and she thought that we were coming. She was like I thought at first. When I looked at that I saw william mcgowan stick out to me and she goes. We like we just identified and you just show up oh, that's so sweet right.
Speaker 2:So she, she was like really excited about that for a minute. Then she, like julia, had asked something along the lines of like you know, how, how do these bodies just kind of you know, she was well, sometimes they're buried there already and it's they. They're in like the unknown part of the cemetery, without stones and because of all the family, dna stuff and everything else going on, they'll research it for years. She says, until we know for 99. Sure we, we can't do anything. When we're at 99 they'll exhume the bodies and test. Or sometimes bodies are still found. Because, you know, sometimes people in france during covid decide to renovate their garden and dig up an entire plane with a body still in it. Jesus, yeah, I mean, it's just wild, it was. That was the whole thing to me. It's's one thing to learn about World War Two and you know it happened in France and all over, you know and it's another thing to just stand there in the places where it happened and it was just mind blowing.
Speaker 1:Oh my God. Ok so, zachary. Why do we have orbs and weird things all around us right now?
Speaker 2:That I'm not sure of. Like I said, I felt like it was a little bit faded to tell the story. The way all things came together I don't know if somebody guided my hand at all in it I'm not going to claim that but it has been a very strange feeling while writing this and I'm going to leave it at that.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Anyways, that's the story of the insane experience that I was not expecting to get from the Normandy tour and the story of the SS Leopoldville and my family member, john McGowan. So I hope I did his story justice and I hope that other people can either learn something from it or remember his name, because I think now on Christmas it's definitely something I'm going to have to do a little ritual for and he's going to go up on my family member altar as well. Stop crying, tara.
Speaker 1:I am literally like blubbering, like a baby.
Speaker 2:Oh my god, I can't it's just incredible, isn't it like?
Speaker 1:and it's just so sad, but also it's so weird.
Speaker 2:I know weird, but like just how it all happened, like how it all happened and like, for some reason I've always been drawn to stories of shipwrecks, shipwrecks, you know. Maybe there there's some, some ancestral part of that there, but uh yeah that is very cool, that's really cool it was definitely and not selfishly for me.
Speaker 2:It was just an amazing experience to be able to do that for him. So that's why I talked to mom and I said hey, you know, I want to write an episode about it, not to make a big deal about the story, or anything but just to show.
Speaker 1:But that is how devastating it was and how. The cover-up and everything else like well, just the events that led you there is just like how do you not tell that story? Yeah, like how?
Speaker 2:since then, too, I've been on such a world war ii kick. I'm like listening to podcasts and youtubes and everything, and it's just I can't do it.
Speaker 1:It just really makes me sick.
Speaker 2:I just I, I think it's important to remember, though, because history is doomed to repeat itself, and it's, I think, we now we're so. There's so many less survivors from world war ii and veterans that it's easy to forget how hard people fought for the freedoms we had.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're right, and how?
Speaker 2:quickly. People have come to power and were able to change the world not for the good, so you're important to remember those things.
Speaker 1:And with that now we have influencers.
Speaker 2:There we go, right, okay, so something good that happened to you this week, because we need to lighten this up.
Speaker 1:I don't have anything good. This was so sad I'm. I'm like I'm very, very, very curious as to who the fuck is here right now, Because I don't know if you were seeing every orb that was around me, and then there was a ton behind you, but that never happens when recording.
Speaker 2:It's happened a handful of times that we've been shocked by it before, that it's not like something we haven't noticed, but not as much as what was just fucking happening while we were just recording.
Speaker 1:Now, that was so weird. I've never and normally I see them behind you, I don't ever see them by by me and I just kept seeing weird light flashes and then a ton of like weird little orbs around me I think that's the part of when you're talking about the ancestry. It's so powerful, how, how those it is, but now I'm freaking out members and guides come through why are they here?
Speaker 2:I just have to wrap it up and have a little conversation with them. Maybe.
Speaker 1:Maybe you have a story you need to tell I was just thinking like did I have somebody on that ship? How fucking weird would that be?
Speaker 2:that would be very strange, dude.
Speaker 1:We'll have to do some digging oh my god, all right, I cannot stop crying um. So the emoji for this episode, I know I don't want to do that, I think a gravestone and a flower, not to be morbid, but a gravestone is just nice, okay.
Speaker 2:Or an American flag and a French flag. Oh my God, there we go. It's a mess. I know Kara's trying to pull it together.
Speaker 1:You could just put cry tears.
Speaker 2:Here's the ask for this week, and we could always do a special episode about this. But if you have a family member that you'd want to honor with their story, oh my god, we would love to have you write it in. And you know, it's that whole thing of you die twice right, when you, when you pass and when people say your name for the last time. So if you have some ancestors stories you want to share, send them to us and we would love to do an episode honoring your loved ones.
Speaker 1:Yeah, even if it's not like a war story. No.
Speaker 2:Anything Like anything.
Speaker 1:Oh my God, Tell me about your grandma.
Speaker 2:We talk about so many things like this without being connected to it and without some of the emotion and to the ghosts. You know, it's easy to forget the people that they were. So when I give back to the people they were, kara is bawling again. So, we're're gonna close the shop up. I'm so sorry I made you cry, um, we love you. Oh, we do so much. Hug your family hard and do you? Do you want to say the magic words, or do you need me to help you out this time around?
Speaker 1:oh my god, the most important thing you could do for us is to creep it.
Speaker 2:Really oddballs goodbye, bye, bye At the Ali Shop, locked in the shadows At the Ali Shop, at home with the oddballs At the Ali Shop. The door's always open At the Ali Shop.
