Deborah

Unbeknownst to them, they were destined for one of the deadliest campaigns of World War II, the Battle of the Bulge.

But they never made it there.

Jerry was among more than 2,200 men loaded onto a troop ship on Christmas Eve.

The ship was bound for Cherbourg, France, just a short trip across the English Channel.

But hours later, just five miles from the entrance to the harbor, a torpedo struck.

A survivor described the slender, silver missile cutting through the water and colliding with the ship as having shaken the vessel from stern to stern.

Hundreds of men in the lower decks were killed instantly as the sea rushed into the massive gash.

Those who made it to the upper decks weren't much better off.

They'd not been briefed on how to lower the lifeboats or free the rafts that might have carried them to safety.

That, they were told, was the job of the crew.

But the crew, a Belgian outfit, spoke little English and had little loyalty to the American troops aboard.

And so it happened that many crew members abandoned ship while the Americans aboard still had no idea they were slowly sinking.

Many soldiers were presumed to have gone down with the ship.

Others were lost to injuries and hypothermia.

In the end, 763 men died.

Jerry was one of them.

After six months of training, he saw one day of war.

The scale of death was so needless, the failed emergency response so poor, that for decades, the U.S.

government covered up the details.

Survivors risk losing their veteran benefits if they talked.