For 50 frustrating years, Harvey McDonnell of Elmira wondered what happened to his beloved older brother. Missing in action - that's all the U.S. Army would say about Ferrel McDonnell, a soldier sent to Europe to fight in World War II.
For five decades, that was the only thing the government would say. It wasn't until the 1990s that McDonnell finally learned the truth - his brother was among hundreds of troops who perished when the SS Leopoldville was sunk in the English Channel by a German submarine.
A new documentary produced for the National Geographic Channel traces the mystery behind the sinking of the Leopoldville, and highlights the stories of Ferrel McDonnell and another soldier who died.
That documentary will air on the National Geographic Channel tonight.
The show brought back many painful memories for Harvey McDonnell.
"You were relieved, of course. You had closure," he said. "But I suppose you were more disgusted or mad because they wouldn't tell anybody anything.
"When the war ended, there was no reason to keep it a secret anymore," Harvey McDonnell said. "But they conveniently forgot about it."
The mystery got its start late in 1944.
The SS Leopoldville, a Belgian transport ship, was steaming across the English Channel from Great Britain to France carrying 2,235 American servicemen, along with hundreds more British troops.
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On Christmas Eve, the ship was only five miles from the French coast when it was struck by a German torpedo. Despite the close proximity, rescuers were slow in coming.
In the end, more than 800 American servicemen died. Perhaps embarrassed by the slow response and massive loss of life, the government swore the survivors to secrecy.
"In those days, you got a telegram. If you saw the telegram guy coming, it was bad news," Harvey McDonnell said. "It just said he was missing. After that, I got several letters from the government that he was missing. Nobody said a word."
And that was the end of the story for many long, painful years for the family.
"His parents lived a long life and never knew what happened," Harvey McDonnell's wife Jean said of the wall of silence surrounding the event.
Government documents about the attack were finally declassified in 1996.
It was around that time that Jean McDonnell was watching a news special about the story when certain details started to sound familiar. It was only then that the McDonnells learned the full story.
"I recognized the company he was in, the 66th Panther Division," Jean McDonnell said. "I said, 'Harvey, you better come listen to this. It may have something to do with your missing brother.' And it did."
Recently, documentary producers started studying the circumstances of the Leopoldville sinking, along with attempts by divers to explore the wreck.
They contacted Harvey McDonnell and asked him to travel to France where the documentary was being filmed, but he was not well enough to make the trip.
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The documentary makers also contacted McDonnell's older sister, Beulah "Bea" Grantham of Muskegon, Mich. She provided them with background information about Ferrel.
"They came to my daughter's house and I went there and met them," Grantham said. "I don't know why it needed to be a secret that long. I started crying. You had to get some of it out."
Grantham and Harvey McDonnell were both pleased with the documentary, which has aired once already on the National Geographic Channel.
"You're always looking at stuff, even how they showed where the divers went down, and it showed the helmets, boots lying there, what's left of the ship," Harvey McDonnell said.
"I think people were very pleased," Grantham said. "It's heart-wrenching but I was very pleased that we know what happened."
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