From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Laconia incident was an incident during World War II in September 1942 when RMS Laconia, carrying some 80 civilians and 268 British Army soldiers, and about 1,800 Italian prisoners of war with 160 Polish soldiers on guard, was struck by a torpedo from a Kriegsmarine U-boat off the coast of west Africa and sank. The U-boat commander, Kapitänleutnant Werner Hartenstein, realized the error and commenced rescue operations, joined by other U-boats. Heading to rendezvous with Vichy French ships under Red Cross banners, the U-boats were attacked by a United States Army Air Forces B-24 Liberator bomber. The event profoundly affected the operations of the German fleet, which abandoned the practice of attempting rescue of civilian survivors under the Laconia order of Karl Dönitz.

At 10 p.m. on September 12, 1942, U-156 was patrolling off the coast of West Africa midway between Liberia and Ascension Island. The submarine's commanding officer, Kapitänleutnant Werner Hartenstein, spotted a large British ocean liner sailing alone and attacked.

At 10:22 p.m. the liner, sailing under the name Laconia, transmitted the following message on the 600-meter band

SSS SSS 0434 South / 1125 West Laconia torpedoed

As the ship began to sink, Hartenstein surfaced, hoping to capture the ship's senior officers, but surprisingly saw over two thousand people struggling in the water. The 20,000-ton Laconia was carrying not only her regular crew of 136 but also some 80 civilians, military material and 268 British soldiers, and about 1,800 Italian prisoners of war with 160 Polish soldiers on guard.

Survivor Jim McLoughlin states in One Common Enemy that Hartenstein asked him if he was in the Royal Navy, which he was, and then asked why a passenger ship was armed, stating "If it wasn't armed, I would not have attacked." McLoughlin believes this indicates Hartenstein had thought it was a troop transport rather than a passenger ship.

Hartenstein immediately began rescue operations. Laconia sank at 11:23pm. At 1:25am September 13 Hartenstein sent a coded radio message to Befehlshaber der Unterseeboote (Commander-in-Chief for Submarines) alerting them to the situation. It read:

Head of submarine operations, Admiral Dönitz immediately ordered two other U-boats to divert to the scene. Soon U-156 was crammed above and below decks with nearly two hundred survivors including five women, and had another 200 in tow aboard four lifeboats. At 6am on September 13 Hartenstein broadcast a message on the 25-meter band in English to all shipping in the area giving his position, requesting assistance with the rescue effort and promising not to attack. It read:

If any ship will assist the ship-wrecked "Laconia" crew, I will not attack providing I am not being attacked by ship or air forces. I picked up 193 men. 4, 53 South, 11, 26 West. ―German submarine.

U-156 remained on the surface at the scene for the next two and a half days. At 11:30am on September 15, she was joined by U-506 commanded by Kptlt. Erich Würdemann and a few hours later by both U-507 under Korvettenkapitän Harro Schacht and the Italian submarine Cappellini. The four submarines with lifeboats in tow and hundreds of survivors standing on the hulls headed towards the African coastline and a rendezvous with Vichy French surface warships which had set out from Senegal and Dahomey.^[1]

The next morning, September 16, at 11:25am, the four submarines, with Red Cross flags draped across their gun decks, were spotted by an American B-24 Liberator bomber from Ascension Island. Hartenstein signalled to the pilot requesting assistance. Lieutenant James D. Harden of the U.S. Army Air Force turned away and notified his base of the situation. The senior officer on duty that day, Captain Robert C. Richardson III, replied with the order "Sink sub."

Harden flew back to the scene of the rescue effort and at 12:32pm attacked with bombs and depth charges. One landed among the lifeboats in tow behind U-156 while others straddled the submarine itself. Hartenstein cast adrift those lifeboats still afloat and ordered the survivors on his deck into the water. The submarines dived and escaped. Many hundreds of the Laconia survivors perished, but French vessels managed to re-rescue about a thousand later that day. In all, some 1,500 passengers survived. An English seaman, Tony Large, endured forty days adrift in an open life boat before he was finally picked up

Under the Hague Conventions, hospital ships are protected from attack, but their identity must be communicated to belligerents (III, 1-3), they must be painted white with a Red Cross emblem (III, 5), and must not be used for other purposes (III, 4). Since a submarine remained a military vessel even if hors de combat, the Red Cross emblem did not confer automatic protection, although in many cases it would have been allowed as a practical matter. The order given by Richardson has been called a possible war crime, but the use of a Red Cross flag by an armed military vessel may have been a violation of treaty. It would be a violation under the Geneva Convention of 1949 (II, 44). There is no provision in either convention for temporary designation of a hospital or rescue ship.

The Laconia incident had far-reaching consequences. Until then, as indicated in point #1 of the "Laconia order" (below), it was common for U-boats to assist torpedoed survivors with food, water and directions to the nearest land. Now that it was apparent that the Americans would attack rescue missions under the Red Cross flag, Dönitz ordered that rescues were prohibited; survivors were to be left in the sea.

At the Nuremberg Trials held by the victorious Allies in 1946, Dönitz was indicted for war crimes, including the issuance of the "Laconia order":

The prosecution has introduced much evidence surrounding two orders of Dönitz, War Order No. 154, issued in 1939, and the so-called " Laconia " Order of 1942. The defence argues that these orders and the evidence supporting them do not show such a policy and introduced much evidence to the contrary. The Tribunal is of the opinion that the evidence does not establish with the certainty required that Dönitz deliberately ordered the killing of shipwrecked survivors. The orders were undoubtedly ambiguous and deserve the strongest censure.

The evidence further shows that the rescue provisions were not carried out and that the defendant ordered that they should not be carried out. The argument of the defence is that the security of the submarine is, as the first rule of the sea, paramount to rescue and that the development of aircraft made rescue impossible. This may be so, but the Protocol is explicit. If the commander cannot rescue, then under its terms he cannot sink a merchant vessel and should allow it to pass harmless before his periscope. The orders, then, prove Dönitz is guilty of a violation of the Protocol. (Emphasis added)

In view of all the facts proved and in particular of an order of the British Admiralty announced on the 8th May, 1940, according to which all vessels should be sunk at sight in the Skagerrak, and the answers to interrogatories by Admiral Nimitz stating that unrestricted submarine warfare was carried on in the Pacific Ocean by the United States from the first day that nation entered the war, the sentence of Dönitz is not assessed on the ground of his breaches of the international law of submarine warfare.^[2]

For his other crimes Dönitz was sentenced to 11 years 6 months in prison; he was held just over 10 years as a prisoner of war in Spandau Prison, West Berlin.

• Unrestricted submarine warfare
• Allied war crimes

1. ^ Amphibian Patrol Squadrons (VP-AM) Histories: VP-AM-1 to VP-AM-5. United States Navy (December 2003). Retrieved on September 5, 2006. According to the official after-action report by the US Navy, all four submarines were present. Survivor accounts in One Common Enemy and The U-Boat Peril say the Italians arrived later.
2. ^ Judgement : Doenitz the Avalon Project at the Yale Law School

• The Laconia Incident on Uboataces.com
• The Laconia Incident on Uboat.net