SUN: 100-year-old Baltimore vet remembers WWII: ‘I’m blessed to still be alive’

BALTIMORE — U.S. Army private Henry Miner had just finished dinner on board an Allied transport ship crossing the English Channel on Christmas Eve, 1944, when an explosion rocked the vessel stem to stern.

Told to jump overboard or go down with the ship, he jumped. He clung to the nearest floating objects — a cluster of corpses — and prayed until help arrived.

The 18-year-old had survived one of the worst maritime disasters of World War II: the sinking of the SS Leopoldville in a German torpedo attack that left more than 750 of his shipmates dead.

“It was terrible what happened to all those young men, and I’m blessed to still be alive,” said Miner, 100, who described the events in vivid terms at the Baltimore Veterans Administration (VA) assisted living facility center where he lives on Thursday.

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