DOB/DOD: August 24, 1907 (Brooklyn, NY) – November 27, 1943; 36 years old
MARITAL STATUS: Married Camilla Baxter Sloat (1912-2004) on October 18, 1935, in Wilton, Connecticut. Mrs. Sloat was born in Rowayton and moved back to South Beach Drive around 1946
CHILDREN: One son, Marshall Sloat (1936-2011), who served in Vietnam with the Army.
ENLISTMENT: Commission in 1943
SERVICE NUMBER: O-509398
UNIT: 31st Signal Construction Battalion
STATUS: Missing In Action (MIA); at sea, not recoverable
FAMILY: Born to Walter Delnor Sloat Sr. (1879-1928) and Ethel Magurn Sloat (1889-1921). One brother, Edward (1909-1978).
DECORATIONS: Awarded the Purple Heart Medal.
CIRCUMSTANCES: Killed in the sinking of the HMT Rohna.
From The Norwalk Hour June 7, 1944
Second Lieutenant Walter D. Sloat, who was employed as a lineman-truck driver in Norwalk in 1929 and who was listed as missing in action since early this year, is now officially reported as having lost his life on November 27 in the sinking of a troop transport in the Mediterranean. The former assistant foreman of Construction Gang 36 in New Milford was commissioned in January 1943 and embarked for overseas duty in the fall of that year after training at Monmouth. He is survived by a wife and two children.
From findagrave.com: Walter was a passenger on the His Majesty’s Transport (HMT) Rohna. The Rohna and four other troop ships left Oran, French Algeria, with cargo and troops. Off Béjaïa, Algeria, the convoy was attacked by an estimated 60 German Luftwaffe Heinkel 177s. Hit by a glide bomb that struck Rohna on her port side, she eventually sank. 1,138 men were killed, including 1,015 U.S. personnel. The attack is the largest loss of US troops at sea due to enemy action in a single incident. 35 U.S. troops of the 2,000 originally embarked later died of wounds. At about 1715–1725, during second wave attacks, Rohna was hit by an HS-293, the only one of the 42 launched to score a direct hit on its target, although there were numerous other near misses on the escorts and the convoy ships. The bomb hit Rohna’s port side, penetrated deep into the ship on a delayed fuse, and blew holes in the starboard side, quickly causing the ship to list to starboard. About 300 U.S. Army troops were killed in the blast or never made it off the ship. The bomb hit about 15 inches above the waterline, but nevertheless, the starboard holes flooded the engine room, knocking out electrical power, including to the pumps, and set the Number 4 hold on fire. The blast also destroyed six of 22 lifeboats and buckled plates on the port side so that no boats on the port side could be launched. Ultimately, only eight lifeboats could be launched, which turned out not to be in very good condition to begin with. All but two of the lifeboats that did get in the water were quickly overloaded, swamped, and sunk.
HMT Rohna
Memorialized in North Africa American Cemetery, 553 rue Roosevelt, Carthage 2016, Tunisia; Tablets of the Missing.
Memorialized in the family plot at Putnam Cemetery, 35 Parsonage Road, Greenwich, CT; Section A, Lot 236SW. Photos by webmaster.
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