MovieChat Forums > U-571 (2000) Discussion > Germans didn't shoot survivors

Germans didn't shoot survivors

posted 13 years ago by WisdomThreeNine
69 replies | jump to latest

Foot notes at the end of this movie went out of their way to give the british credit for capturing the enigma code machine, but why wasn't there a foot note explaining that german u-boat sailors did not shoot survivors? Here is something I bet nobody ever read in a history book, in September 1942, the U-156 sank the british steamliner(converted to a military ship) the RMS Laconia off the coast of Africa, once the german u-boat commander discovered that there was civilians on board he immediately started a rescue operation, 3 others u-boats came and they started towing the life boats. The german commander radioed the british to inform them and asked for assitance. American B-24 bombers from a secret atlantic island base showed up, the german commander with "Red Cross flags" flying from the german u-boats signaled the B-24's for assitance. The B-24's turned and than started dropping bombs on the u-boats, the u-boats immediately cut the tow lines and dived for safety, as a result half of the survivors died. German Admiral Karl Doenitz than forbad any more assitance to surviors. The survivors from the second incident were always grateful for the german assitance and blamed the Americans for what happened.

google "Laconia incident"

[–] pandyam 12 years ago

At any given day and any given time I would watch Das Boot and any German movies compared to junk directoris making junk and gimmicky inaccuracte alutarated and 3rd grade movie.. seriously so many inaccuracies?
Having said that Brits were no good they are the fater of slavery but its always americans and british are holding the banner of good boys and try to hammer WWII to potray Germans and Japanese to be worst than humans..
common seriously? 7pence for shooting a adult aborgini and 3c for child... these people cant talk human rights to china and Russia sitting in UNSC and talking big and gimmmics... there is really a sensor board in America who dictates and filters unwanted crap? This gives enough justification to communists and other states to doctor the facts and manipulate real life events to show what they want to..
Fine line between Democracy misuse and communist dictatorship.
sorry digressed a bit but this whole money making busniess for entertainment has gone too far twisting the facts and showing one big enemy in Germans Nazis and Japanese people...
Suggested to watch:
1. Napola - Before the fall
2. The Downfall
3. Das Boot
4. Letters from Iwo Jima
5. Flags of our forefathers
6. The 9th day
7. The Tracker
8. Gandhi
9. The Counterfeiters
10. Paths of Glory

These movies are mostly real and some are fiction but very acture - the quality of Paths of Glory has lost in hollywood since 1990s...

[–] seanmaguire1974 12 years ago

I thought I'd post this up here, it is apparently the USS Wahoo shooting Japanese survivors. Interesting that they filmed it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6gFQH54k0M

[–] adrossan 11 years ago

OH YES THEY BLOODY DID !!!!

The ignorance of the prior posts is astounding - any genuine naval historian will tell you the machine-gunning of survivors was common practice amongst those captains who chose to do so. It was not part of standing orders however many surviving Allied sailors have documented the German propensity to machine-gun survivors, in order to ensure secrecy of both kills and positioning. U-boats in particular had no facilities for prisoners and unfortunately it was Nazi philosophy to eradicate survivors. There are also too many vessels which sank within close proximity of safety, but with no hands surviving.

It was also standard practice in WW1 for the German Navy, do your own homework and stop asserting history by dint of watching movies & cruising the internet. Get out into the libraries & real world and read the facts for yourselves. Meet some old servicemen and hear it for yourselves.

[–] madseavets 10 years ago

he ignorance of the prior posts is astounding - any genuine naval historian will tell you the machine-gunning of survivors was common practice amongst those captains who chose to do so. It was not part of standing orders however many surviving Allied sailors have documented the German propensity to machine-gun survivors, in order to ensure secrecy of both kills and positioning. U-boats in particular had no facilities for prisoners and unfortunately it was Nazi philosophy to eradicate survivors. There are also too many vessels which sank within close proximity of safety, but with no hands surviving.

It was also standard practice in WW1 for the German Navy, do your own homework and stop asserting history by dint of watching movies & cruising the internet. Get out into the libraries & real world and read the facts for yourselves. Meet some old servicemen and hear it for yourselves.

What are these other documented cases? The Japanese certainly did machine gun survivors but there's only one recorded occasion where the Germans did it. There are more examples of Germans helping survivors.

As for the allies, it was common for British ships to leave survivors in the water because of the danger of the rescue ship being torpedoed. There are even cases of British ships depth charging British survivors in an attempt to sink a U-boat (and I don't just mean in "The Cruel Sea").

In WWI, there's the case of HMS Baralong, where the crew of a British warship shot the survivors from U-27. It was soon after the Lusitania was sunk. so they were not disposed to taking prisoners.

[–] CGSailor 10 years ago

The ignorance of the prior posts is astounding - any genuine naval historian will tell you the machine-gunning of survivors was common practice amongst those captains who chose to do so. It was not part of standing orders however many surviving Allied sailors have documented the German propensity to machine-gun survivors.

The only astounding ignorance is your own and the only thing you have prove is that you are NOT a genuine naval historian.
Because any genuine naval historian will tell you that German uboatmen machine gunning survivors was almost entirely wartime propaganda and false. Only ONE confirmed case and one other suspected case (Topp) but that one was dropped for lack of evidence.
It was NOTHING like you claimed and all you've managed to do on this thread is highlight your own stupidity.

I joined the Navy to see the world, only to discover the world is 2/3 water!

[–] Smerdyakoff 11 years ago

In the Pacific theater, that sort of bad behavior was in retaliation for the horrible way the Japanese usually treated their POWs

[–] Smerdyakoff 11 years ago

There were Italian pows on board too, and they were allies of the Germans then. So the submariners felt obligated to save them.

[–] generationofswine 8 years ago

BOTH sides practiced that, its why the sentences were dropped from Nazi Navy Commanders during the war crimes trials,

"Few people understand the psychology of dealing with a highway traffic cop."

[–] the_la_baker 8 years ago

in September 1942, the U-156 sank the british steamliner(converted to a military ship) the RMS Laconia off the coast of Africa, once the german u-boat commander discovered that there was civilians on board he immediately started a rescue operation, 3 others u-boats came and they started towing the life boats. The german commander radioed the british to inform them and asked for assitance. American B-24 bombers from a secret atlantic island base showed up, the german commander with "Red Cross flags" flying from the german u-boats signaled the B-24's for assitance. The B-24's turned and than started dropping bombs on the u-boats, the u-boats immediately cut the tow lines and dived for safety, as a result half of the survivors died. German Admiral Karl Doenitz than forbad any more assitance to surviors. The survivors from the second incident were always grateful for the german assitance and blamed the Americans for what happened.

But but but, 'Merica!

It really is that simple. We won the war so the losers are evil and 'Merica is great. It really is pathetic that people turn a blind eye to the truth in favor of a fairy-tale.

Sadly, thus is reality.

[–] cheapfrill 8 years ago

You know the American submariners had to shoot and destroy any ship they encountered off the coast of Japan. From the Doolittle raid on, they knew their positions could be reported by fishermen with radios. Most found it morally repulsive to kill civilian teenagers at sea, but these were the orders and had to be followed. No one walks away very pure from total war.

[–] adrossan 7 years ago

Thanks to those that chimed in with proof also, I don't normally respond to morons but CGSAILOR you win the prize. I said military historian not naval historian, and have been so since 1968. Where were you in 1968 ? You respond to people with abuse; you're informed of something you don't know & call that person an idiot and stupid - a great definition of a troll. I said do your own research, and meet some ex-servicemen who know. Your opinion and knowledge is limited, yet you view & attack everyone else from your own infinitesimal insight, which you asset is "right" because you said it.

The men I initially learned from are now all unfortunately dead; do you read German accounts, in German, and understand German military technology ? No I thought not. You also did not at any time acknowledge the presence of political informants planted amongst German military, who informed on & caused execution of servicemen that did not "comply" or carry out with "full enthusiasm" Nazi doctrine.

It appears to me you feel if you don't know about something, it didn't happen. many German atrocities were hidden and many are only now coming to light, especially with a flood of German books from ex-servicemen, their diaries, their notes, their confessions as elderly men facing the end.

Do you understand the word "euphemism" ? No, I thought not. A report stating the enemy vessel was sunk with loss of all hands, and despatched according to all requirements, means a lot more than you may think. How many eyewitnesses from an Allied vessel would report an unlawful killing, when they are all dead ? Do you understand how political terrorism worked in WW2 Nazi Germany ? No, I thought not. If any rating on board a vessel reported a Captain, you can be sure not only that rating would disappear, but also his family & relatives. The name would be stamped as PU, politically undesirable, and those relatives remaining would lose ration cards, housing rights, have military exemptions cancelled, be arrested & executed on trumped up charges, & so on. People lived in absolute fear of almost everything in WW2 Nazi Germany; even to voice a "doubt the Final Victory" was punishable with death - the way to avoid being arrested by the Gestapo, it was thought, was to denounce before YOU were denounced.

Many files found after East Germany collapsed show how extensive denouncing was in the Third Reich; Gestapo files captured by the Soviets were kept & passed on to the Stasi, some Stasi were even ex-Gestapo. Neighbours denounced each other, family denounced other family members, Hitler Youth children denounced their parents and so on.

Nobody knows everything about the past, it's impossible. Yet you have the unmitigated gall & temerity to abuse people when they don't agree with your opinion. Unless you have a time machine and can transport yourself back to every action worldwide across the entirety of WW2 (& not just the part after the US finally got off it's backside & joined the fight) then you are speaking from a very small amount of your own reading & knowledge.

You're a perfect example of the pests that litter this site, last word merchants & pompous Richard Craniums that react with infantile hubris when their narrow view is questioned.

Piss off would you & leave us in peace.