Chapter 529 "Laconia"

A German "Caiyun" high-speed reconnaissance aircraft is on routine patrol over the North Atlantic.

Suddenly, the observer in the middle position (the three crewmembers of "Caiyun") shouted loudly. "Hey, down there! One o'clock!"

Looking in the direction he pointed, the pilot saw a black spot on the sea in the distance, and the reconnaissance plane began to descend.

The observer with a high-powered telescope stared at it for a while and said in surprise. "It seems to be an American guard ship. This place is more than 1,500 kilometers away from the U.S. coastline. They come so far to patrol?"

The driver responded casually. "We are still more than 3,000 kilometers away from Europe, twice as far as others."

"That's different. We can call in attack planes to sink them. Can their P-36 fighter jets come? Well, maybe their aircraft carrier is nearby. How about..." Before he finished speaking, he saw that A huge column of water suddenly arose from the side of the guard ship, and accompanied by thick smoke, the small guard ship tilted rapidly and began to sink.

"Ha!" The observer couldn't help but clicked his tongue. "It seems that there are our submarines nearby. Tsk, a lot of people fell into the water. If there weren't their ships nearby, these poor guys would have died here."

The driver said disapprovingly. "Just die, His Highness said, these bastards from the New World don't deserve to be treated as knights."

In view of the "Laconia" incident in the original time and space, Yannick ordered that there was no need to rescue the people who fell into the water of the sunken American ship.

"Laconia" was originally a passenger ship. After the outbreak of World War II, the Royal Navy carried out military modifications on the ship. It was equipped with 14 guns (actually 8 guns) for ship attack, as well as anti-aircraft guns and depth charges. and detectors.

On September 12, 1942, the German submarine "U-156" encountered the "Laconia" in the waters northeast of Ascension Island on its way to perform a patrol mission in the waters off Cape Town. At that time, the "Laconia" was performing a special mission of transporting prisoners of war. There were 436 British sailors, 268 British people on leave (including 80 women and children), 1,800 Italian prisoners of war, and about 160 guards on board. their Polish prisoners of war.

In the view of Hartenstein, the captain of the submarine "U-156", the "Laconia" is undoubtedly a valuable large target (he did not know that there were non-combatants and Italian prisoners on board) , so a torpedo attack was immediately launched. The "Laconia" was struck by a mine in the belly, and a large hole was blown in the underwater part, and seawater surged in. The British captain immediately ordered to abandon ship and sent a clear SOS message in English at 22:22, reporting that it had been hit by a torpedo. At 22:26, ​​another coded telegram was sent, reporting that the ship was about to sink. The personnel carried by the "Laconia" left the ship one after another, but the cabin where the Italian prisoners were held was still tightly locked.

Hartenstein saw many women and children among those who fell into the water, and planned to come to the rescue. As they approached the Laconia, they heard someone on the ship shouting for help in Italian, and they learned that there were Axis personnel on board. He immediately reported the matter to his superiors. Interestingly, leaders at all levels did not dare to take responsibility at this time. In the end, the matter was placed in front of Marshal Karl Dönitz, the commander of the German Navy.

Dönitz was also troubled: Hartenstein undoubtedly caused him trouble. Submarines were not encouraged to take risks to rescue enemy personnel in battle, which was also in line with the provisions of the 1907 Geneva Treaty. But after all, the Italians are allies, and it's not easy for them to ignore them. But if the Italians are rescued, the British also have the right to demand to be rescued. The U-boat officers and soldiers will never push the rescued British back into the sea. The worst part is that a small U-156 is not capable of rescuing so many people anyway.

Marshal Dönitz finally made a difficult decision: go all out to rescue the drowning man! This order was sent to the High Command and received a certain degree of tacit approval from the Führer.

According to the order, the German U-506 and U-507 cruising in the nearby waters immediately gave up their original mission and carried out the rescue together with the U-156 boat. The nearby Italian Navy submarine "Cappellini" also went to the rescue. The German army also deliberately used an internationally recognized signal to issue a statement that any ship willing to participate in the rescue would be a comrade of the German army in this operation and would not be attacked. In order to speed up the rescue progress, the German army also gave the precise coordinates of the crash of the "Laconia". For the German army, such a situation was already very dangerous. According to the plan, after the drowning people were rescued, they would be sent to the Ivory Coast of nominally neutral Vichy France. France took this very seriously and immediately agreed to organize a fleet to assist in the rescue.

Most countries still choose to stand on the side of humanity, but there is one country with ulterior motives, and that is the United States.

At 11:25 noon on September 16, 1942, a US military fighter plane suddenly appeared over the Laconia. At that time, all the ships that were busy rescuing people were flying red cross flags, and the US warplanes only circled a few times and left. Only an hour later, another US military plane flew over, but the Germans did not take it seriously and continued to focus all their energy on search and rescue work.

Who would have thought that the fighter plane suddenly dived and dropped a bomb, and then dropped three bombs in two consecutive times. One of the bombs hit a rescue boat, causing heavy casualties. Although U-156 was terrified, she still took the risk to escape with 142 British women and children. On September 17, the Vichy French transport ship "Anamit" and the ironclad ship "Glory" received all the people who fell into the water. The German side then went to the United States to settle accounts, questioning why the United States took advantage of the situation.

The United States quickly gave a reply, but the answer sounded ridiculous: the United States said that they did not know that there were their allies, the British, on the ship. However, regardless of the nationality of the "Laconia", whether from a humanitarian or moral perspective, the United States' behavior was very strange. Sure enough, as soon as the "Laconia" incident appeared, the world was scolded, and the old rivals Britain and Germany even stood on a united front to condemn the United States' sneak attack. However, the condemnation of the United States did not last long. Due to the tense situation of the war, the two major camps still focused on the war.

The incident angered the German high-ranking officers, and all U-boat captains received a secret telegram from Berlin: "Stop all actions to rescue the personnel of the sunken enemy ship. These actions include: rescuing those who fell into the water; placing them on lifeboats; righting overturned lifeboats; providing food and fresh water, etc. Because the rescue operation does not meet the minimum requirement of the war to destroy enemy merchant ships and crews."

The real purpose of Dönitz's order was not whether the rescue itself was meaningful, but that during the rescue process, the captain could not make tactical actions such as diving and evasion in time when the enemy aircraft arrived. The captain had no right to threaten the lives of all officers and soldiers on the boat for goodwill - not only that, the "Laconia" incident proved that the Allied forces did not care how to sink the German U-boat.

After the war, Dönitz was listed as a major crime in the Nuremberg Trial because of this order.

Therefore, Yannick deliberately issued a "special order for combat against the United States", stipulating that there was no need to rescue those who fell into the water of sunken American ships.