News & Events

Sgt. Robert (Rubin) Firstman ’47 sat in the library on a lower deck of the HMT Rohna on November 26, 1943, the day after Thanksgiving, when he felt the explosion that would sink the ship full of more than 1,900 men—American, British, and Indian—into the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of north Africa.

One year earlier the young sailor had been a 19-year-old sophomore at Brooklyn College studying music and playing in a local jazz band. After the United States entered World War II in December 1941 to join its allies against Germany, Japan, and other Axis powers, Firstman suspected he would eventually be drafted into the armed forces. The Bronx native decided not to wait and went with a friend to a recruitment point. Within weeks, he was boarding a train at Penn Station and off to basic training.

Firstman took a military aptitude test and was assigned to a unit in the Army Airways Communications System. His first assignment was in Africa, off the coast of Algeria. It was there that he boarded the former British passenger and cargo liner, the HMT (His Majesty’s Transport) Rohna, that would soon have profound impact on his life, and the lives of countless others. Shortly after departing for Bombay, India, as part of a convoy, the ship was hit by a guided glide bomb dropped by the German Luftwaffe. After the initial impact, Firstman managed to drop into the water and swim away from the listing ship. He clung to an oil barrel with two others and was eventually rescued by the USS Pioneer 10 hours later.

“The sun was setting and the half-submerged Rohna became a burning silhouette against the sky,” said Firstman in an account of the ordeal for an upcoming documentary called Rohna: Classified. “We [survivors] stopped to look at it for a few minutes, then turned back to the business at hand. The biggest problem now was the descending moonless night. Until our godsend [the Pioneer] came quietly out of the dark.”

Firstman, along with many of the survivors of his convoy, continued to Bombay before completing a full tour of duty in China, Burma, and India.

After the war, the young veteran returned to Brooklyn College and completed his bachelor’s degree in music. He graduated in 1947 and went on to pursue a master’s degree in music at Columbia University. He married and decided to leave music and go into the jewelry manufacturing business. He would not know until much later how many of his fellow military personnel had not made it. Although it remains the greatest loss of American troops at sea due to enemy action—1,138 died that day—the loss of the HMT Rohna was little discussed or acknowledged until decades after the attack.

After the event, family members of the deceased received vague telegrams months after the ship was lost, informing them that their loved one was considered missing in action. Survivors were reportedly instructed not to discuss what happened during the failed mission. The details were even further obscured from the public, as no news media or government official acknowledged what had occurred. This was not unusual, as military actions during a war were often considered top secret to prevent leaks and security breaches.

That was to change. After 50 years, the information on the Rohna sinking was declassified, and in 1999 The Rohna Survivors Memorial Association (TRSMA) was established to connect remaining survivors and family members of those who perished while also bringing the tragedy to light.

To publicize the story of the Rohna, the association launched a letter-writing campaign in 2000 to gain congressional recognition of the event. They succeeded in October of that year when the House of Representatives voted unanimously to recognize the loss of HMT Rohna as a part of U.S. history.

“My father, Anthony Pumelia, who was in the Army Air Corps, was a Rohna survivor,” says Janice Pumelia, adjunct professor of secondary education at Brooklyn College and secretary and board member of TRSMA. “Every Thanksgiving he would begin his story again and say something like, ‘This was the day I went into the water and almost lost my life.’ It was kind of vague, the way he described it, but he did say he was rescued in about an hour. Most of the men were brought to Phillipsville, South Africa, to recuperate. He spent most of the next two years in China and India and returned home on Christmas Eve 1945.”

Many years later, in 2002, the family located in California a friend who was on the ship that fateful day, John Messina. The following year the two veterans met for the first time in 60 years at a Rohna survivors reunion in Oklahoma City. “When my father passed in 2004, I found it difficult to go to the reunions,” says Pumelia. “But I kept in touch.” In 2014, the then English teacher and assistant principal retired from Midwood High School. That’s when TRSMA asked her to join their board as secretary. Having attended many reunions since then, she has met many of the survivors.

Whether it was kismet or coincidence, having not one, but two members of the Brooklyn College family tied to a little-known, historic event that was kept quiet for so long is certainly out of the ordinary. And both the alumnus and the professor are continuing to tell the story.

In an interview for The Palm Beach Post, it was divulged that Firstman, who turns 99 this February, is writing his memoir at the urging of his son, Rick, who is a journalist, and currently the senior writer and podcast director at the City University of New York’s Office of Communications.

And Pumelia is the education outreach coordinator for Rohna: Classified, which is still in production.

“We’re looking at the future, and how the association is going to function as we go forward,” says Pumelia. “Creating an archive and making it available to researchers and history buffs is definitely something we’d like to do. Most importantly, we want the younger generation to know the story of what happened on November 26, 1943, and to be the voice for those who lost their lives on that day and the survivors who lived to tell the story.”