Lifeboats or liferafts attacked during or after sinkings

[John Gilinsky]

Can anyone contribute specifics for attacks on lifeboats and/or liferafts or any other lifesaving devices and of course the shipwrecked? Please furnish us with vessel(s) names, official id/registration number(s) if known, dates, times if known, locations, casualties sustained and identification of the attacking party or parties.

Thanks!

John

[egbert]

I am not sure what time frame and what nationality you are looking for. It happened in each and every war, committed by all participating parties.

The most dramatic in my mind was 3.5.1945 when the passenger vessel Cap Arcona filled with holocaust victims was attacked by the Royal Air Force despite the clear warning from the Swiss Red Cross. The accounts of surviving holocaust victims tell that even the liferafts and the lifeboats where constantly attacked by the RAF Typhoons on their way to the safety of the Neustadt shores.

21/22.10.1904 , the Russian Baltic fleet attacked British fishing vessels which led almost to Russian-Brit declaration of war.

13/14.4.1940, British battleship Warspite with 9 destroyers sank 8 German Fjord trapped destroyers in Norway. HMSCossack and Foxhound continue firing on the liferaft and the survivors of Erich Giese.

Even the Israelis fired deliberately on the lifraft/survivors of the USN ship Liberty on 8.6.1967

etc, etc

you can read or continue researching other war crimes where British Navy, US Navy, Russian Navy and German Navy fired on survivors and helpless people.

I don't know though what is the clear intention of your research and what specific nation is your target.

[John Gilinsky]

I am compiling data for eventual inclusion in a db of ALL such events globally.

Secondly my time frame focuses on 1914 to 1945 but I am interested in earlier and post-1945 events. However this forum is on the First World War. Therefore in respect of others and resonable space limitations please restrict your input to the years 1914 to 1922.

Thirdly I thought you were going to raise the case of the S.S. Peleus from 1944 or the Laconia case, etc....

Thanks for your input.

John

Toronto

[egbert]

Thirdly I thought you were going to raise the case of the S.S. Peleus from 1944 or the Laconia case, etc....

I have given you a friendly sample list of war crimes of ALL nations to include the British Navy. There are hundreds of war crimes in conjunction with this special topic; what makes you think what cases I shall raise please?

Again, if you are refusing to accept this data base, just let me know....

[John Gilinsky]

I have given you a friendly sample list of war crimes of ALL nations to include the British Navy. There are hundreds of war crimes in conjunction with this special topic; what makes you think what cases I shall raise please?

Again, if you are refusing to accept this data base, just let me know....than you should not post such questions here

Thanks again for this German internet link. The Peleus case and the Mediterranean Sea earlier where British warships blew defenceless caiques carrying German troops I think in the Aegean Sea between islands is also on this German site. Clearly the German site is derived from official German reports and propaganda pieces from the wars. What we need as we both know is a global site that includes as many of these incidents as possible in order to get a fairer and clearer picture of what happened as well as the approaches to 'atrocities' that different countries took at different times.

Thanks so much for this neat German website.

John

[bob lembke]

John;

There is an interesting related incident that you may know of, and I, offhand, do not remember the details. A German Zeppelin returning from England crashed in the North Sea, and a UK ship came up but refused to take the survivors on board, but steamed away. Some of the survivors wrote poignant farewell letters that I think were literally put into bottles and which were recovered after washing up on the Danish coast. The crew eventually died.

I am not a particular student of naval warfare, but I repeatedly have come across examples, in both wars, of the Royal Navy, after sinking a capital ship, picking up say 12 or 20 survivors, presumably for intelligence purposes, and then steaming off, leaving hundreds in the water to drown. The Bismark is one example. Often it was stated that there might be U-boats lurking, but, for example in the above case, the possibility of submerged submarines after a high-speed chase several thousand miles long in the open sea is of course almost nil. I know that this example was WW II but I think I recall one or two WW I examples.

There is the famous case of the Allied bombers attacking surfaced U-boats crowded with survivors (Allied POWs?) and displaying the "Red Cross", forcing the U-boats to dive and wash the survivors off their decks. This aborted rescue was arrainged by Donitz and broadcast to the Allies in the clear without Hitler's knowledge; the latter "had a bird" when he heard of it. WW II, of course.

I have read of cases of U-boat commanders committing crimes against survivors, and many of them taking considerable care, providing water, compasses, etc. I am sure that the Q-ship business dropped the quality of mercy quite a bit. In the negative example, the example of von Luckner, sinking something like 17 Allied ships, supposedly without the loss of a single ship's cat, comes to mind. (My father met him twice, once at a party in Germany, and once in New York City; he was walking two poodles on the fashionable Park Avenue.)

Bob Lembke

[John Gilinsky]

Survivors of U-27 on August 19, 1915 shot by members of Q-ship Baralong.

Survivors in a lifeboat of U-41 on September 24, 1915 attacked by (possibly ex-Baralong) uncertainly identified British warship

[John Gilinsky]

John;

There is an interesting related incident that you may know of, and I, offhand, do not remember the details. A German Zeppelin returning from England crashed in the North Sea, and a UK ship came up but refused to take the survivors on board, but steamed away. Some of the survivors wrote poignant farewell letters that I think were literally put into bottles and which were recovered after washing up on the Danish coast. The crew eventually died.

I am not a particular student of naval warfare, but I repeatedly have come across examples, in both wars, of the Royal Navy, after sinking a capital ship, picking up say 12 or 20 survivors, presumably for intelligence purposes, and then steaming off, leaving hundreds in the water to drown. The Bismark is one example. Often it was stated that there might be U-boats lurking, but, for example in the above case, the possibility of submerged submarines after a high-speed chase several thousand miles long in the open sea is of course almost nil. I know that this example was WW II but I think I recall one or two WW I examples.

There is the famous case of the Allied bombers attacking surfaced U-boats crowded with survivors (Allied POWs?) and displaying the "Red Cross", forcing the U-boats to dive and wash the survivors off their decks. This aborted rescue was arrainged by Donitz and broadcast to the Allies in the clear without Hitler's knowledge; the latter "had a bird" when he heard of it. WW II, of course.

I have read of cases of U-boat commanders committing crimes against survivors, and many of them taking considerable care, providing water, compasses, etc. I am sure that the Q-ship business dropped the quality of mercy quite a bit. In the negative example, the example of von Luckner, sinking something like 17 Allied ships, supposedly without the loss of a single ship's cat, comes to mind. (My father met him twice, once at a party in Germany, and once in New York City; he was walking two poodles on the fashionable Park Avenue.)

Bob Lembke

Sinking of USN destroyer Jacob Jones on December 6, 1917 and German sub commander radioed position of shipwrecked en clair so the British could rescue survivors!

John

[egbert]

Survivors of U-27 on August 19, 1915 shot by members of Q-ship Baralong.

Survivors in a lifeboat of U-41 on September 24, 1915 attacked by (possibly ex-Baralong) uncertainly identified British warship

I was just curious upon this Q-ship John mentioned as I did not know about this WW1 related story and found this by googling:

"August 19, 1915 Lieutenant Godfrey Herbert of the merchant ship Baralong sank German submarine U-27 and shot 10 survivors in the water. Some of the Germans sought refuge aboard the SS Nicosian, which had been abandoned by its crew. Herbert sent marines aboard the Nicosian who killed the four remaining survivors.

September 24, 1915 HMS Baralong, renamed Wiarda, lured a German submarine U-41 into range and sank the U-boat with gunfire. After the Wiarda left the area two survivors climbed aboard an abandoned lifeboat. About three hours later the Wiarda returned and deliberately ran down the lifeboat. "

[Borden Battery]

Here is a re-post on a related topic - do a discussion forum search for "Llandovery Castle" for a full discusion on this specific ship.

Borden Battery

===============================================

To add to marc's comments, here is a posting I did on the CEF Study Group with some select phrases bolded for easy reference which support the thesis that no wounded men were on-board. Borden Battery

At the start of the Battle of Amiens:

"Each division reported assembly completed by sending Corps Headquarters the code word "Llandovery Castle". Operational instructions for the attack issued by Canadian Corps Headquarters bore the initials "L.C." The Llandovery Castle, a British merchant vessel serving as a Canadian hospital ship, had been torpedoed on 27 June 1918, while returning to England from Halifax. Of a Canadian crew and medical staff totalling 258 all ranks, only 24 survived. Among those who perished were the fourteen Canadian Nursing Sisters aboard."

Source: Official History of the Canadian Army in the First World War - Canadian Expeditionary Force, 1914-1919, Colonel G. W. L. Nicholson, p372 (footnote)

Naturally, as a result of this event affecting a lot of Canadian personnel, there are reported to have been several instances where many German defenders at the Battle of Amiens did not survive to become prisoners of war:

"Their determination to punish the enemy had recently been jacked even higher by an atrocity that had taken place on June 27. On that night, a Canadian hospital ship, the Llandovery Castle, was torpedoed by U-86 and sunk on a return voyage to Britain. Kapitanleutnant Patzig, after ascertaining from the ship's captain that the Liandovery Castle carried only medical personnel, then rammed all the lifeboats except one, which managed to escape in the dark. Two-hundred and thirty-four died that night including fourteen nurses. The Canadian reaction was typified by Brigadier George Tuxford, a former homesteader from Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan: "Amongst those murdered were two Moose Jaw nurses, Sister Fraser and Sister Gallagher. I gave instructions to the Brigade that the battle cry on the 8th of August should be 'Llandovery Castle,' and that that cry should be the last to ring in the ears of the Hun as the bayonet was driven home."

Amiens - Dawn of Victory, James McWilliams and R. James Steel, p 31

The Llandovery Castle, assigned to the Canadian service was sunk by submarine June 27, 1918. Of the entire ship's company of 258 only 24 survived; and of these only six, one officer and five other ranks, were from the 97 in the medical personnel. Amongst the lost was the whole complement of nursing sisters, 14 in number. The attack was made with utter savagery; even the escaping life-boats were pursued and sunk.

Source: History of the Canadian Forces--the Medical Services (by Sir Andrew Macphail)

http://www.gwpda.org/naval/rcnmed00.htm

[John Gilinsky]

John;

There is an interesting related incident that you may know of, and I, offhand, do not remember the details. A German Zeppelin returning from England crashed in the North Sea, and a UK ship came up but refused to take the survivors on board, but steamed away. Some of the survivors wrote poignant farewell letters that I think were literally put into bottles and which were recovered after washing up on the Danish coast. The crew eventually died.

I am not a particular student of naval warfare, but I repeatedly have come across examples, in both wars, of the Royal Navy, after sinking a capital ship, picking up say 12 or 20 survivors, presumably for intelligence purposes, and then steaming off, leaving hundreds in the water to drown. The Bismark is one example. Often it was stated that there might be U-boats lurking, but, for example in the above case, the possibility of submerged submarines after a high-speed chase several thousand miles long in the open sea is of course almost nil. I know that this example was WW II but I think I recall one or two WW I examples.

There is the famous case of the Allied bombers attacking surfaced U-boats crowded with survivors (Allied POWs?) and displaying the "Red Cross", forcing the U-boats to dive and wash the survivors off their decks. This aborted rescue was arrainged by Donitz and broadcast to the Allies in the clear without Hitler's knowledge; the latter "had a bird" when he heard of it. WW II, of course.

I have read of cases of U-boat commanders committing crimes against survivors, and many of them taking considerable care, providing water, compasses, etc. I am sure that the Q-ship business dropped the quality of mercy quite a bit. In the negative example, the example of von Luckner, sinking something like 17 Allied ships, supposedly without the loss of a single ship's cat, comes to mind. (My father met him twice, once at a party in Germany, and once in New York City; he was walking two poodles on the fashionable Park Avenue.)

Bob Lembke

You are referring to the King Stephen trawler whose skipper thought better than to take aboard his littlle fishing boat so many what he considered to be armed enemies in early 1916. There are some illustrations of this in the popular illustrated press of the day (eg. ILN, Graphic, etc....). The Germans made great hay out of this for propaganda use.

John

[bob lembke]

You are referring to the King Stephen trawler whose skipper thought better than to take aboard his littlle fishing boat so many what he considered to be armed enemies in early 1916. There are some illustrations of this in the popular illustrated press of the day (eg. ILN, Graphic, etc....). The Germans made great hay out of this for propaganda use.

John

That may have been the excuse given, but if you have a ship, and are confronted with a number of survivors in the water, you can of course totally control the manner in which the survivors come on board. If the survivors try to negotiate their conditions, you leave them in the water. If I had a crew of five or six, and there were 10 or 12 survivors it the water, and I had rudimentary weapons, a firearm or two, or even clubs and pitchforks, one would have them come up a boarding ladder one at a time, seized and searched, tied up (ships have rope, sailors know knots, trussed survivors can be jammed in a locker one at a time).

The trawler commander could also have radioed for a warship. I would think that he had more than a few men, and I would imagine a few firearms.

There was a lot of popular sentiment against the Zeppelins, and I am sure that the captain just wanted the crew to die. But those were not the rules of war.

Bob Lembke

[Michael Lowrey]

A quick note on the signifiance of the Baralong affair (machine gunning survivors of U 27 while in the water etc.): having looked at a lot of U-boat war related material, I can safely say that this is one of the two episodes that is the basis of an immense amount of propaganda. Indeed, I would contend that anything published in the 1920s and 1930s must be viewed extremely critically to establish whether its accurate and true telling of what happened. Even more modern accounts often are influenced by these earlier retellings.

To put it bluntly, published German postwar accounts from U-boat crewmen taken prisoner usually claim the British machined survivors in the water (see, for example, Werner Fürbringer's book Fips and his description of the sinking of UB 110 and what happened next).

British accounts, meanwhile, typically present German survivors in the water from sunk U-boats (and Zeppelins) as inevitably being armed and still extremely dangerous pirates and unworthy of being rescued (see commonly used description of the sinking of U 28 and non-rescue of survivors in 1917).

The key to understanding what really happened in each individual case are surviving primary source documents.

[MartH]

John;

I am not a particular student of naval warfare, but I repeatedly have come across examples, in both wars, of the Royal Navy, after sinking a capital ship, picking up say 12 or 20 survivors, presumably for intelligence purposes, and then steaming off, leaving hundreds in the water to drown. The Bismark is one example. Often it was stated that there might be U-boats lurking, but, for example in the above case, the possibility of submerged submarines after a high-speed chase several thousand miles long in the open sea is of course almost nil. I know that this example was WW II but I think I recall one or two WW I examples.

Bob Lembke

Hello, can't comment on the other posts, but:

The Bismark is not a good example ,there were enough German U boats in the area to cause a severe problem, copied from U Boat logs

"27.5 [27 May 1941]

0015 U 73 [commanded by Lieutenant Helmut Rosenbaum] sighted Bismarck and enemy forces in BE 6155. At 0042 the U-boats were ordered to search the area BE 6277 to BE 6192. Bismarck was to make beacon-signals to assist them.

U 73 reported at 0231: "Last observation: Gunnery action between 3 units BE 6119. No further hydrophone bearing." A situation report of 2345 from C. in C. Fleet (which contained no position) showed that the battleship was surrounded by enemy forces.

At 0300 U 556 [commanded by Lieutenant Herbert Wohlfahrt] obtained a bearing of 200 degrees from BE 6153. She observed a gunnery action at 0340 bearing 230 degrees 15 miles off from BE 6164 and herself made beacon signals. At 430 she reported gun flashes bearing 230 degrees from BE 6164 left bottom. No more D/F [direction finding] bearings of Bismarck.

At 0631: Starshell bearing 270 degrees from BE 6192.

At 0700 C. in C. Fleet [Admiral Gunther Lutjens] requested that his War Logs be fetched by a U-boat. U 556, which was probably the nearest, was ordered to do this.

After all data had been re-examined, the U-boats were informed that Bismarck's position was believed to be BE 6150. This was Group Command West's assumption. I myself believed it to be further N.W. and I informed the U-boats of this possibility.

At midday U 556 reported that she would have to return because of lack of fuel. U 74 received orders to fetch the War Log instead of her.

As no further news was received which helped to clarify the situation, all U-boats taking part in the operation were ordered at 1326 to report their last sighting of Bismarck and any other observations made by them.

U 73 and 74 reported, but their observations were old and inaccurate.

At 1400 the battleship had to be presumed lost in view of English broadcasts and the situation in general. The boats were ordered at 1460 to search N.W. from BE 6150 for survivors.

This search was unsuccessful and at 1954 they were ordered to cover the following areas:

U 108 - BE 6110

U 48 - BE 6120

U 74 - BE 6140

U 97 - BE 6150

U 73 - BE 6190

At 2059 U 74 [commanded by Lieutenant Eitel-Friedrich Kentrat] rescued 3 survivors in BE 6142 and according to their statements the ship must have been sunk at about 1000 in BE 5330, i.e. N.W. of BE 6150. This agreed with B.d.U's assumptions.

All boats were ordered to join U 74 and to search from there to BE 5330. It was intended to form a searching line the next day at 0800 from BE 5330 with U 73, 74 and 48, direction 140 degrees, speed 6 knots. The present disposition of the Southern boats was designed mainly to intercept convoys, but the boats had not picked up a convoy for 8 - 9 days. I therefore decided to redistribute them in new attack areas with the object of concentrating on single-ship traffic. U 107 had reported another 3 ships totaling 21,000 GRT [Gross Registered Tons] sunk. The new attack areas are:

U 103 and U 38 South of the line Freetown bearing 40 degrees U 107 and UA [submarine commanded by Lieutenant Commander Hans Eckermann] (which is supplying today) North of this. All boats are to remain N. of 5 degrees N., E. of 30 degrees W., and S. of this E. of 25 degrees W.

Supply was requested for U 93 for May 29 in the Northern area and approved.

And from U 556

It was then on May 27, 1941 that U-556 got the order to run for Bismarck, then sinking, and collect its war diary. On the way to the site the U-boat saw aircraft carrier Ark Royal and the battlecruiser Renown pass directly in front of the U-boat but unfortunately she had expended all her torpedoes and was unable to help her bigger sister. The boat actually saw Ark Royal launch the aircraft that doomed the Bismarck.

As ever one has to be careful of the internet, the Ark Royal launched the aircraft on the 26th!

The beat actual reference in The U-boat War is in The Atlantic MOD 1989, gives a proper translation of U556's log, he thought it was the KGV and the Ark Royal. He was in the correct position to fire, and no destroyers and no zig zagging, siting ducks, but no Torperdos.

U Boats were in CLOSE contact on the 27th till 4.00: U 556, who handed over to U 74.

U Boats were in the area till the 31st May.

So it was a very close run thing - imagine if Ark Royal had been sunk before sending in the two SWORDFISH attacks on the 26th....

One of the problems is that the British Warships had used up a substantial amount of fuel in the chase and where running short, which resulted in the shortest routes home. Hence the Destroyer that got caught and sunk near Ireland.

Still. it is a pity they did not risk it, and rescue more of Bismark's crew in the water.

Regards

Mart

[Gibbo]

There were only around 5 major actions between British & German surface ships in WWI

Heligoland Bight

According to Castles of Steel by Robert Massie, Commodore Roger Keyes accused a British junior officer from HMS Liverpool of being a coward for not moving in closer to pick up survivors of the German light cruiser Mainz. Liverpool was under the command of Commodore Goodenough, who pointed out to Keyes that he had stopped to pick up enemy survivors despite the possible presence of enemy mines & submarines.

Coronel.

Nobody saw HMS Good Hope sink but Leipzig saw what must have been her wreckage. All the bodies were lifeless. The Germans gave HMS Monmouth, which was still moving but not firing, every opportunity to strike her colours. When she didn't do so, they had little choice but to sink her. There were no survivors.

Falklands.

The British signalled Scharnhorst to surrender but she did not & went down with her colours flying. The British saw no survivors but could not have stopped as Gneisenau was still firing. The British ceased fire after she appeared to have stopped firing but the Germans then fired a single shot, whereupon the British resumed fire. They ceased fire when it became apparent that the Germans were no longer able to fire, although they had not struck their colours. Castles of Steel says that 200 to 300 out of 850 Germans got into the water after scuttling thier ship & 193 were picked up the British, 14 of whom were found to be dead. According to Massie, HMS Carnarvon was sent an imperative signal to lower all her boats by Admiral Sturdee when she appeared to be slow to join in the rescue work.

Later in the day Leipzig was sunk by the British, who carried on firing after she'd ceased to be able to fire because she wouldn't strike her colours. Unknown to the British, this was because a fire prevented the Germans from getting to the flag to haul it down. Around 150 men were still alive when Leipzig stopped firing but only 18 survived. Perhaps another 30 got into the water but the British couldn't find them in the dark. 7 of the survivors were officers, who carried whistle.

Dogger Bank

Because of signalling errors & lack of initiative the British battlecruisers pounded the armoured cruiser Bluecher to destruction, when they should have pursued the rest of the German squadron & left the crippled Bluecher to be finished off by torpedoes. Again, one side carried on firing on a wrecked enemy until she struck her colours. 234 out of 1200 members of her crew were rescued by the British.

Jutland

In the middle of a massive battle the scope to stop & pick up even friendly survivors was limited.

The common theme from WW1 seems to be that officers of both sides were reluctant to strike their colours even when their ship was wrecked & that both sides generally continued to fire until the colours were struck but then did as much as possible to rescue survivors, who were often too exhausted to hold onto the ropes & nets offered by their erstwhile opponents.

In WW2 only 2 German warships of over 10,000 tons were sunk by British surface ships. Mart has dealt with the sinking of Bismarck. The most likely explanation is that the British genuinely thought that they'd seen a U boat but were mistaken. Remember that the British ships carrying out rescue operations were stopped in the water so were sitting ducks. In 1914 the British armoured cruisers Aboukir, Hogue & Cressy were sunk by U-9, the last 2 after stopping to pick up survivors. After that, the RN generally didn't stop to pick up even British survivors if the presence of submarines was suspected.

The story of the British picking up only a few survivors for intelligence purposes seems to come from the sinking of Scharnhorst in 1943. Only 36 Germans were rescued & a British sailor later, I think in a TV documentary, claimed to have heard an officer say, 'Right, that's enough, let's go' or something similar. Counter arguments are that the British may have been concerned over U boats, visibility & sea conditions were bad & none of the survivors picked up were officers; if there were more Germans visible in the water, wouldn't the British have tried to find an officer if their motivation was intelligence gathering?

[John Gilinsky]

Thanks Gibbo for this well thought out and structured post. Fleet actions are one thing but clearly as we all know the vast majority of "actions" involved one, 2 or three vessels at most. How many of the ships lost without trace or with no survivors during 1914 to 1918 were cases of internationa law violations? There are contemporary references to especially merchant ships being shelled or sunk and their boats being attacked. In one case I think in late 1916 or 1917 the ships survivors to the number of 40 or more were paraded on the sub's decks all their lifebelts collected and then the sub submerged.

John

[Gibbo]

Presumably if a U boat sank an isolated merchantman with no survivors then there would be no witnesses other than the crew of the U boat to say what happened. Even ignoring humanity & considering entirely military necessity, I struggle to see why a U boat captain would hang around the scene of a sinking killing survivors rather than make a quick escape.

I've got a vague recollection of the story of the survivors being gathered on the deck of a U boat but can't remember details.

[Terry Denham]

Some of the above posts contain long quotes for no purpose. This is just a waste of space and Chris' money.

Please only use quotes when necessary and then edit them to include only the bit that is relevant.

You should reply by using the three 'Reply' buttons as follows -

- Fast Reply - Use this at all times except as in the two situations below.

- Add Reply - Use this when you wish to include an attachment

- Reply " - Use this when you wish to include a quote from a post - and only then.

[bob lembke]

Guys;

Thanks for the informed clarifications. As I said, I am nether a student of naval warfare and in particular of WW II, and I probably got my impression in particular from a single reading of the account of the sinking of the Bismark many years ago, and one or two other accounts. I had the impression that the Bismark was sunk in the middle of the Atlantic, and it seemed improbable that there would have been subs about with surface ships speeding about at 25-30 knots during a chase of several days, given the slow speeds of subs. Mart's detailed info certainly put that idea to rest.

Bob Lembke