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KF5JRV > TODAY 04.10.18 13:13l 37 Lines 1818 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 21132_KF5JRV
Read: GUEST
Subj: Today in History - Sept 12
Path: IZ3LSV<DB0ERF<DB0RES<IR2UBX<IW0QNL<VE2PKT<N9PMO<NS2B<KF5JRV
Sent: 180912/1115Z 21132@KF5JRV.#NWAR.AR.USA.NA BPQ6.0.16
On this day in 1942, a German U-boat sinks a British troop ship, the
Laconia, killing more than 1,400 men. The commander of the German sub,
Capt. Werner Hartenstein, realizing that Italians POWs were among the
passengers, strove to aid in their rescue.
The Laconia, a former Cunard White Star ship put to use to transport
troops, including prisoners of war, was in the South Atlantic bound for
England when it encountered U-156, a German sub. The sub attacked,
sinking the troop ship and imperiling the lives of more than 2,200
passengers. But as Hartenstein, the sub commander, was to learn from
survivors he began taking onboard, among those passengers were 1,500
Italians POWs. Realizing that he had just endangered the lives of so
many of his fellow Axis members, he put out a call to an Italian
submarine and two other German U-boats in the area to help rescue the
survivors.
In the meantime, one French and two British warships sped to the scene
to aid in the rescue. The German subs immediately informed the Allied
ships that they had surfaced for humanitarian reasons. The Allies
assumed it was a trap. Suddenly, an American B-24 bomber, the Liberator,
flying from its South Atlantic base on Ascension Island, saw the German
sub and bombed it—despite the fact that Hartenstein had draped a Red
Cross flag prominently on the hull of the surfaced sub. The U-156,
damaged by the air attack, immediately submerged. Admiral Karl Donitz,
supreme commander of the German U-boat forces, had been monitoring the
rescue efforts. He ordered that “all attempts to rescue the crews of
sunken ships…cease forthwith.ö Consequently, more than 1,400 of the
Laconia‘s passengers, which included Polish guards and British crewmen,
drowned.
73 de Scott KF5JRV
Pmail: KF5JRV@KF5JRV.#NWAR.AR.USA.NA
email: KF5JRV@ICLOUD.COM
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