after they abandoned the submarine and Ropers subsequent depth charging of U-85 should be investigated. He never used the phrase war crime, as is sometimes stated, and he relied on a very inaccurate American book as his source. On 29 April, Roper rescued fourteen survivors from the British merchantman , which had been torpedoed and sunk by five days earlier. On 1 May, it rescued another thirteen survivors from Empire Drum. They were landed at Norfolk, Virginia, that day. At the end of May, Roper began a series of coastwise escort runs, from Key West to New York, which took her into 1943. In February of that year, it shifted to Caribbean–Mediterranean convoy work and remained on that duty until October when it entered the Charleston Navy Yard for conversion to a high speed transport. Convoys escorted Auxiliary service Reclassified and given hull classification symbol APD-20''' (transport destroyer) on 20 October 1943, Roper departed Charleston in late November and trained in the Chesapeake Bay area and off the Florida coast into the new year, 1944. On 13 April, she steamed east and at the end of the month joined the 8th Fleet at Oran, Algeria. A unit of Transport Division 13, assigned to support the offensive in Italy, Roper landed units of the French Army on Pianosa on 17 June and, into July, plied between Oran and Naples and operated along the western coast of the embattled peninsula. In August, she shifted her attention to southern France. On 15 August, she arrived off that coast as part of the "Sitka" Force and landed troops on Levant Island. On 5 September she returned to Italy; resumed runs between Naples and Oran, and, in early December departed the latter port for Hampton Roads. Arriving at Norfolk on 21 December, Roper sailed again on 29 January 1945. On transiting the Panama Canal, she reported to the Pacific Fleet, and, after stops in California and Hawaii, moved into the Mariana Islands. Okinawa On 11 May 1945, she departed Guam for the Ryukyu Islands. Arriving in Nakagusuku Wan on 22 May, she circled to the Hagushi anchorage off Okinawa the same day. Three days later, while on screening station off that transport area she was hit by a kamikaze. Ordered back to the United States to complete repairs, she departed the Ryukyus on 6 June and reached San Pedro a month later. In August, she