Showing The sinking of the Laconia : a tragedy in the battle of the Atlantic by Frederick Grossmith

In terms of loss of life, the sinking of the Cunard liner Laconia by a U-boat in 1942 is the second-worst Allied maritime disaster of the war, but the remarkable fact of this gripping tale is the heroic rescue attempt initiated by the submarine captain, Werner Hartenstein, after he had sunk the ship, when he realised she had been carrying 1800 Italian prisoners of war. Once initiated, however, he made no distinction of nationality, he just tried to help everyone. He was at risk of Allied attack while doing so, because the thinking of the time was that, if any opportunity arose to sink a submarine, it had to be done regardless of the circumstances. Indeed, U-156 did attack more ships after the incident. Hartenstein declared the area of the sinking a neutral zone. Germany sent three submarines. Vichy France sent warships from West Africa (at risk of Allied attack). Italy sent a submarine. Britain did nothing, and America sent a Liberator bomber to attack the rescuers. Passengers who had been rescued and were being towed by the submarine were thrown back into the sea when the submarine submerged to escape. She surfaced an hour later and the crew did what they could for the survivors, but those lifeboats which had originally been saved now started a long, horrible, journey to Africa on their own, with most of their passengers dying of thirst on the way. Nevertheless, the other submarines and the French ships completed the mission and a thousand lives were saved. Some two thousand were lost. This was the last time in the entire history of the sea when a submarine tried to help its own victims. Admiral Dönitz made what is called 'The Laconia Order', prohibiting further rescue attempts. It is difficult to imagine a more pivotal and important event which had been almost entirely ignored by maritime historians until Fred Grossmith researched the story in the early 1990s. This is the pioneer book which was the basis for the three-hour drama by Alan Bleasdale.