In the aftermath of a naval battle, where an enemy ship has been sunk and there is no longer any imminent threat to the victorious ship(s), does the victor make any effort to pick enemy seamen out of the water or just leave them there to drown? Does it vary depending on the time and place and the disposition of the ship’s captain, or is there established naval custom and practice?
Rescuing shipwrecked sailors is definitely part of naval custom, and part of international law (though it’s not entirely clear who qualifies and what the obligations are). Like every customer or law, it’s not always done, but most follow it as long as it doesn’t endanger their vessel or advantage the enemy.
As to a recent example I’m reminded of the Kursk disaster in which the US, UK, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, and Norway all offered to help rescue the Russian sailors. Russia declined the offer intially but later accepted help from the British and Norwegians. By that time it was essentially a salvage & forensic mission.
The question I am asking refers to wartime situations, rather than shipwrecks or accidents. I accept that the answer may be the same but it’s not clear to me from the example you gave.
The US Navy rescued the crew of U-505 after its near-sinking and attempted scuttling.
It’s was always the practice, starting out of pure practicality when those rescued could be either ransomed or used for replacement rowers. It became a matter of honor when England and the Dutch Republic engaged in a long naval war without any real national hatred involved. The French and Spanish survivors at Trafalgar were dutifully rescued. When the Royal Navy steamed off and left the survivors of the Bismarck to drown it was scandalous.
There were reported sightings of U-Boats, note.
Believe it or not, during the earlier part of world War II, some U-boats rescued survivors of ships they sank. Then the Laconia incident happened, and that ceased.
RMS Laconia, carrying 2,732 crew, passengers, soldiers, and prisoners of war, was torpedoed and sunk by U-156, a German U-boat, off the West African coast. Operating partly under the dictates of the old prize rules, the U-boat’s commander, Korvettenkapitän Werner Hartenstein, immediately commenced rescue operations. U-156 broadcast her position on open radio channels to all Allied powers nearby, and was joined by several other U-boats in the vicinity.
After surfacing and picking up survivors, who were accommodated on the foredeck, U-156 headed on the surface under Red Cross banners to rendezvous with Vichy French ships and transfer the survivors. En route, the U-boat was spotted by a B-24 Liberator bomber of the US Army Air Forces. The aircrew, having reported the U-boat’s location, declared intentions, and the presence of survivors, were then ordered to attack the sub. The B-24 killed dozens of Laconia 's survivors with bombs and strafing attacks, forcing U-156 to cast into the sea the remaining survivors that she had rescued and crash dive to avoid being destroyed.
Rescue operations were continued by other vessels. Another U-boat, U-506, was also attacked by US aircraft and forced to dive. A total of 976 to 1,083 people were eventually rescued; however, 1,658 to 1,757 were killed, mostly Italian POWs. The event changed the general attitude of Germany’s naval personnel towards rescuing stranded Allied seamen. The commanders of the Kriegsmarine were quickly issued the Laconia Order by Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz, which specifically forbade any such attempt and ushered in unrestricted submarine warfare for the remainder of the war.
As to the Japanese Navy in WWII, Googling led me to several reports of subs sinking Allied vessels, then ramming lifeboats and machine-gunning survivors.
It’s just terminology. Here’s Article 12 of the Geneva Convention:
So while it’s widely acknowledged that the term “shipwrecked” could be better defined, here it’s obviously intended to cover ships that were sunken/disabled/destroyed/grounded by enemy action.
Generally, captains will comply if it doesn’t compromise their mission or security, but like any other customs/conventions, people sometimes break rules.
At Tsushima, the Admiral Oushakow refused the Japanese demand to surrender and scuttled. The Japanese still rescued the survivors
Something that has been very much a problem ever since the introduction of submarines, and to a similar extent aircraft. The victors can’t really know if they are no longer in any imminent threat. There could be submarines, real or imagined, around at any time. For example, in the aftermath of The Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, the damaged US ships retreating from the battle were attacked by I-26 which torpedoed and sank the damaged USS Juneau, which the remaining ships left behind without searching for survivors both out of fear of further submarine attack and the mistaken belief that she had gone down with all hands due to the size of the explosion.
Worth noting is that killing the survivors of sunken enemy ships was common practice on both sides in the Pacific Theater during WWII. In the aftermath of the same battle, from Samuel Elliot Morrison’s History of US Naval Operations in World War II, volume 5:
More in an older thread about shooting at pilots bailing out here
The Laconia incident was very, very, very, very much the exception, and the wiki article is extremely poorly written. The only reason U-156 did what she did was because of the vast numbers of floating survivors and the fact that many of them were Italian POWs. U-boats did not attempt to rescue survivors with even the remotest of regularity, and the idea that U-156 was operating ‘partly’ under the dictates of old prize rules is, if you’ll pardon my French, utter horseshit, as is the claim that the Laconia incident “ushered in” unrestricted submarine warfare.
Old prize rules would have dictated that U-156 surface and demand Laconia stop prior to attacking and sinking her, at which point she could send a boarding party over to determine if she was carrying war materials. She would then have to allow the crew to abandon ship and would have undertaken the requirement to provide some assurance of safety to the crew before sinking her. That is not what she did. She was operating under the lack of rules of unrestricted submarine warfare, as were all submarines by all belligerents during WWII from the very outset of the war. She sank Laconia from ambush, and had there not been such a massive amount of floating Italian POWs, she would have left the crew to their fate, just like every other ship torpedoed by a U-boat or submarine in general during WWII.
For just how horseshit the claim in the wiki article is about the incident “ushering in unrestricted submarine warfare for the remainder of the war,” one need only look at the wiki link on unrestricted submarine warfare in the very sentence of the article:
Unrestricted submarine warfare is a type of naval warfare in which submarines sink merchant ships such as freighters and tankers without warning. The use of unrestricted submarine warfare has had significant impacts on international relations in regards to both the First World War and the Second World War. Its history has been dominated by German decision making.
There have been attempts to limit the use of unrestricted naval warfare, with some dating back to before the turn of the 20th Century as an extension of rules for surface raiders. While initially submarines operated successfully by attacking on the surface using deck guns, attacking without warning while submerged reduces the opportunity for the target to escape or defend itself if armed.
Attacking and sinking the Laconia without warning while submerged is exactly what U-156 did. The harsh reality is that submarines had to conduct unrestricted submarine warfare if they were to have any success. Again, operating under old prize rules U-156 would have had to surface and demand Laconia stop, which would have instantly resulted in Laconia broadcasting said information over her radio. Then U-156 would have had to send a boarding party over to determine if war materials were being carried, and either taken her as a prize (an impossibility due to the small size of a submarine crew) or allowed the crew to abandon ship and ensure that there were sufficient lifeboats, fresh water, etc. for them prior to sinking her. Old prize rules written for the age of sail and prior to the invention of (proper) submarines, torpedoes, or radios don’t mix with said inventions.
I’ll cite another thread from a couple days ago that touches on very similar points to this one, and especially to the comments by @Dissonance just above.
The OP might find this worth reading:
I’ve found this thread immensely interesting. Thanks everyone for your replies.
Since WWII, naval warfare has taken place on a much larger scale than in prior years. For example, in the Age of Sail, ships fought at hundreds of yards. By WWI it was thousands of yards and in some cases, the low tens of thousands. These are ranges where rescuing your opponents was actually feasible.
By WWII navies were fighting each other with aircraft at tens and hundreds of miles, and it’s stayed roughly there ever since.
So these days it’s unlikely that ships will be in a position to rescue enemy seamen, if they’re sinking each other at 100 miles away with missiles and aircraft.
They are supposed to. Mind you in a sub, there is no room. Sometimes a sub will offer a raft, water etc. But a sub has to go. But with surface ships , yes, they almost always did- unless they claim there is a risk of Sub attacks.
The RMS Laconia was a warship- not a civilian vessel, so the U Boat certainly could sink it without warning.
RMS Laconia (1921) - Wikipedia.
On 4 September 1939, the Admiralty requisitioned Laconia and had her converted into an armed merchant cruiser. By January 1940 she had been fitted with eight six-inch guns and two three-inch high-angle guns.
](https://www.warhistoryonline.com/instant-articles/laconia-incident-friendly-fire-changed-pow-treatment-rest-war.html) The Laconia was seen as a legitimate target because it was armed, which excluded it from being warned before an attack.
So no, this is all completely wrong. RMS Laconia was a warship, being used as a troop transport.
Wrong for warships. RMS Laconia was a warship. But correct for civilian unarmed ships.
Note that Admiral Nimitz announced Unrestricted Submarine Warfare himself, and the RN Admiralty had a similar order. Thus at the Nuremberg trials, Doenitz was found not guilty here.
However, under the general rules for naval warfare, the U-Boats commander did have responsibility to aid the men in the water- which he did. Sadly, he the Allies were in no mood to follow the rules.
Actually, not.
The decision was made at a higher level. It was U.S. Navy Chief of Operations Harold “Betty” Stark who ordered it within hours of the attack on Pearl Harbor.
And Nimitz wasn’t even in command in the Pacific, yet. He wasn’t selected until mid December and didn’t take command until the end of the year.
There’s a scene in the 50s movie The Cruel Sea (based on a novel drawing on the author’s wartime experiences) showing a grim-faced Royal Navy captain not only not stopping to pick up survivors from a sunk British ship, but actually going full steam through or over them because of enemy U-boats in the area.
In view of all the facts proved and in particular of an order of the British Admiralty announced on 8 May 1940, according to which all vessels should be sunk at sight in the Skagerrak, and the answers to interrogatories by Admiral Chester Nimitz stating unrestricted submarine warfare was carried on in the Pacific Ocean by the United States from the first day of the Pacific War, the sentence of Dönitz is not assessed on the ground of his breaches of the international law of submarine warfare.[1]
Nimitz announced it during his testimony at the trial, my paragraph was talking about the trial.
One of the not well known sea battles in the Pacific War was the Battle of the Bismarck Sea, in which eight Japanese troop transports carrying 5,954 soldiers, escorted by eight destroyers, which carried an additional 958 troops. Along with the troops were fuel and other desperately needed supplies.
This was shortly after the defeat of the Japanese in the long Guadalcanal campaign. The Allies (the US and Australia) were battling it out with Japan on New Guinea and the Japanese desperately needed more troops and supplies.
Although the Japanese tried to defend the convoy, Allied air power managed to decimate it. All eight transports were sunk as well as four out of the eight destroyers.
The US deliberately went after the troops in the ocean, sinking lifeboats and rafts. Not only did aircraft strife them, the US sent PT boats to attack as well.
Of course, the Pacific War started out with Japanese war atrocities, including the Bataan Death March. In the Kokoda Track campaign, the Japanese deliberated tortured wounded Allied soldiers, in part to ensure that the Japanese soldiers would know they would be targets of revenge if they were captured.
After the initial battles of the war, in which the Allies surrendered expecting normal behavior, very few prisoners were taken by either side.
Upon viewing the most recent remake of Midway the character Nick Jonas plays feels made up. In fact he was a real guy and everything portrayed happened.
Bruno Gaido was a crewman on a dive bomber that had to ditch in the ocean during the Battle of Midway. Gaido and his pilot were picked up by a Japanese destroyer. After they were questioned they were weighted down and thrown overboard.