She was converted for use as a troopship in the Second World War, and on December 24, 1944, while sailing between Southampton and Cherbourg, was torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine U-486.

[2] In 1936 two Bauer-Wach low-pressure exhaust turbines were added, each driving one of the shafts via double-reduction gearing and a Föttinger fluid coupling.

[3] She was built for the Compagnie Maritime Belge as the fifth to bear the name Léopoldville and initially served on the route between Belgium and its African colony, the Belgian Congo.

On 11 November Léopoldville started her career as a troop transport with three trips to Saint John, New Brunswick with a thousand Royal Air Force recruits which will receive training in Canada.

Until April 1944 Léopoldville remained in the Mediterranean Sea, transferring troops between Gibraltar, Algiers, Bône, Augusta, Port Said and Suez.

[6] Léopoldville was hastily loaded for the Battle of the Bulge with 2,223 reinforcements from the 262nd and 264th Regiments, 66th Infantry Division of the United States Army.

[1] There was an insufficient number of life jackets,[1] and few troops participated in the poorly supervised lifeboat drill as Léopoldville sailed from Southampton at 09:00 24 December as part of convoy WEP-3 across the English Channel to Cherbourg.

[7] Léopoldville was within five miles from the coast of Cherbourg at 17:54 when one of two torpedoes launched by U-486 struck the starboard side aft and exploded in the number 4 hold, killing about three hundred men as compartments E-4, F-4 and G-4 flooded.

To avoid any further injuries, if possible, all our hammocks were brought up from our mess-decks below and laid on the starboard upper deck to cushion the fall of the soldiers as they landed."

While the escorts focused on searching for the U-boat and rescuing survivors, they failed to respond to blinking light signals from Cherbourg.

Brilliant contacted HMNB Portsmouth, which telephoned Cherbourg; but shore post communications, decisions, and orders were significantly slowed by minimal staffing during attendance at holiday parties.

Several hundred Allied vessels in the harbor at Cherbourg might have served as rescue craft, but all had cold engines while many of their crewmen were ashore celebrating the holiday.

[7] Allied forces enjoying their Christmas Eve dinner in Cherbourg failed to mobilize a rescue effort before Léopoldville sank by the stern at 20:40.

The soldiers of the 66th Infantry Division were ordered not to tell anyone about the sinking of the ship and their letters home were censored by the Army during the rest of World War II.

After the war, the soldiers were also ordered at discharge not to talk about the sinking of SS Léopoldville to the press and told that their GI benefits as civilians would be canceled if they did so.

Forgotten by many, remembered by few.In 2009, the National Geographic Channel aired a special that recreated the events that led to the sinking and had divers investigating the wreck.