Hidden History: The Laconia Incident

The downfall of the Laconia in 1942 led to an incident that was described as an “American war crime.”

“Hidden History” is a diary series that explores forgotten and little-known areas of history.

If the passenger ship Laconia was built in 1921 by the Cunard company and was smaller than the standard passenger ships of the time. But Cunard was already looking to the future and Laconia was designed for a different purpose. Instead of carrying a large number of passengers across the Atlantic, she was to be a “cruise ship” – a new concept in which a smaller number of passengers would be taken out to sea for a luxury trip. 1923 Laconia was the first passenger ship to complete a complete circumnavigation of the world. She carried 450 passengers and called at 22 exotic ports in the Caribbean, Europe, Egypt, India, the Philippines and the US West Coast. She laid the foundation for Cunard to become the most popular cruise line in the world.

However, when World War II broke out in 1939, the Royal Navy seized Laconia and converted her into an armed troop transport. Her civilian paint was replaced with “battleship grey” and she was fitted with a range of 3-inch and 6-inch deck guns and in 1940 she was assigned to transport British troops to battlefields and garrisons in Africa. She was commanded by Captain Rudolph Sharp, whose previous ship, the converted troop transport Lancastrianhad been sunk by German bombers.

In September 1942 Laconia sailed alone and without escort along the west coast of Africa (the Royal Navy was severely short of ships at the time and could not spare destroyers to protect them). Instead of British troops, she was carrying nearly 1,800 Italian prisoners of war captured in Libya and brought from Africa to England. They were accompanied by nearly 400 British and Polish guards, 80 civilians (mostly families of British troops) and 400 crew members. On 12 September, the ship was off the coast of Sierra Leone.

Captain Sharp did not know that this area was patrolled by a German submarine. U-156commanded by Captain Werner Hartenstein, a veteran who was on his fourth trip with the submarine. Hartenstein noticed the smoke from Laconia funnel on the horizon, delayed his attack until nightfall, approached cautiously underwater to within 5,000 feet, and fired two torpedoes at the ship. It was just after 10 p.m.

The ship immediately sent a distress signal by radio: “Laconia torpedoed”, but that did little – there were no other ships in the area. As the ship filled up, it began to list so badly that half of the lifeboats could no longer be launched. The British troops and civilians filled the remaining boats, but the Italian prisoners of war were left in their pens in the holds below, where they were to remain until all Allied personnel had been put into the boats. Many of them nevertheless managed to escape in the chaos and climb to the upper decks, but there they were prevented from entering a lifeboat by Polish guards with bayonets. The Italians desperately jumped overboard as the Laconia went under. Once in the water, the prisoners of war were again denied access to the floating lifeboats, and now sharks began to snatch people one after the other.

In the meantime U-156 had surfaced nearby. The submarine was not large enough to hold many prisoners, but Captain Hartenstein hoped to find the ship’s senior officers whom he could interrogate for intelligence purposes. Instead, he was surprised to see hundreds of German-allied Italian prisoners floating at sea. He began picking up as many survivors as he could and sent a radio message to Berlin: “Sunk by Hartenstein, British Laconia… Unfortunately with 1,500 Italian prisoners of war; 90 have been fished out of the water so far. Orders requested.” In response, the German Navy ordered a number of German, Italian and Vichy French ships to head for the rescue site. Hartenstein, realizing that they would not get there in time, sent another message, unencrypted over open radio, to any Allied ships that happened to be nearby: “If any ship wants to help the shipwrecked, Laconia crew, I will not attack them, provided I am not attacked by a ship or the air force. I have taken on 193 men…” On the deck of the surfaced submarine he hung a huge Red Cross banner.

It took two days for anyone to arrive. Finally, at midday on September 15, two German submarines and an Italian submarine arrived and began to pick up the remaining survivors, also under the Red Cross flag. All four submarines, each with survivors crammed onto the decks, and several of the Laconia Lifeboats in tow made their way back to the African coast, 700 miles away. During the night they were all separated.

The next day, shortly before noon, U-156 was discovered by an American B-24 bomber flying an anti-submarine patrol from the air base on the remote island of Ascension. The Americans were too far away to have heard Hartenstein’s radio calls, but they had just received a garbled and incomplete message from the British, which was aimed at the Laconia sinking and were asked to send air support for their rescue mission, which was dispatched with some delay. Crucially, the British had failed to mention the radio messages they had received indicating that the U-156 was actively involved in taking in survivors.

In desperation, Captain Hartenstein, still displaying his Red Cross flag, tried to contact the pilot of the B-24 by radio and Morse code in English and explained that he had Laconia survivors and asked for help. Instead, the B-24 flew away and disappeared from sight. The pilot, Lt. James Harden, had no idea what was happening and radioed his superiors in Ascension for instructions. The message came back with his order: sink the submarine.

Several explanations were later given for this order. Some officers did not believe that the Germans were on a rescue mission and concluded that the whole situation was some kind of trap to lure more Allied ships into torpedo range. It was assumed that the use of the Red Cross flag was also a ruse to protect the submarine from attack, and some officers believed that even if the submarine did indeed have survivors on board, they were only enemy Italian prisoners of war.

On the commander’s orders, Harden again approached the U-156 and attacked her with four bombs (his depth charges could not be dropped). None hit the submarine, but one of the bombs fell between the tied-up lifeboats, sinking two of them and killing at least 100 of the Laconia Survivors. The horrified Captain Hartenstein had no choice but to cut the tow lines to the remaining lifeboats to protect his own ship, order all survivors on deck into the water and send the submarine into a dive.

Almost all of these abandoned Laconia Survivors subsequently died in the open sea. Of the 2,700 people on board LaconiaOnly a little more than 1,000 survived the ordeal.

The Nazis concluded that the American attack on ships flying the Red Cross flag and actively engaged in rescue operations was a blatant violation of the rules of war, and in response, all U-boat commanders were ordered to stop to offer assistance or rescue to survivors of sunken ships. This attack was known as “the Laconia Command”.

Shortly after the incident, Captain Hartenstein was awarded the Knight’s Cross for his rescue efforts. He and his crew died in March 1943 when the U-156 was sunk by an American aircraft off the coast of Barbados.

If that U-156 After they went submerged during their attack, Harden and his crew falsely reported that they had sunk the submarine and were subsequently awarded the Air Medal for their bravery.

In 1993, the US Department of Defense published a series of Study of international law which dealt with how the rules of war were applied during World War II. Laconia The Pentagon concluded: “The person who gave the attack order and the aircraft commander who carried it out are both at first glance guilty of a war crime. The conduct of the aircraft commander appears completely inexcusable, since he must have observed the rescue operation. During the time they are engaged in such an operation, enemy submarines are no longer legitimate objects of attack.”

NOTE: As some of you already know, all of my journals here are draft chapters for a series of books I’m working on, so I welcome any corrections you have, whether they’re typos, unclear spots, or factual errors. I consider you all my pre-publication editors and proofreaders. 😉