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The ''Laconia'' incident refers to the controversial events surrounding the sinking and subsequent aborted rescue attempt of a British troopship in the Atlantic Ocean during World War II. On 12 September 1942, under the command of Capt. Rudolph Sharp and carrying some 2,732 crew, passengers, soldiers and POWs, was torpedoed and sunk by German U-boat off the coast of West Africa. Operating partly under the dictates of the old prize rules, the U-boat commander, ''Korvettenkapitän'' Werner Hartenstein, immediately commenced rescue operations, broadcasting their humanitarian intent on open radio channels to all Allied forces in the area, and were joined by the crews of other U-boats in the vicinity. Heading on the surface to a rendezvous with Vichy French ships under Red Cross banners, with their foredeck laden with survivors, ''U-156'' was deliberately attacked by a USAAF B-24 Liberator bomber. The bomber, which had confirmed and reported the U-boat's intentions and the presence of survivors to higher command, was explicitly ordered to attack the ship anyway. The B-24 ended up killing dozens of the ''Laconia''s survivors with bombs and strafing attacks, forcing ''U-156'' to cast their remaining passengers into the sea and crash dive to avoid being destroyed. The pilots of the B-24 inexplicably reported that they had sunk ''U-156'', and were awarded medals for bravery. The event seriously chilled the general attitude of Germany's naval personnel towards rescuing stranded Allied seamen, and the commanders of the ''Kriegsmarine'' (German navy) were shortly issued the "Laconia Order" by Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz which specifically forbade any such attempt, thus helping to usher in unrestricted submarine warfare for the ''Kriegsmarine''. Neither the US pilots nor their commander were ever punished or even investigated, and the matter was quietly forgotten by the US military until the Nuremburg Trials, when a prosecutorial attempt to cite the Laconia Order as proof of war crimes by Dönitz and his submariners badly backfired and embarrassed the US when the full story of the incident emerged. One international bestseller and numerous articles on the subject have been published, and a 2011 television film was produced about the incident. ==Summary of incident== In late 1942, a German U-boat sank the British troopship ''Laconia'' carrying 463 officers and crew, 80 civilians, 286 British Army soldiers, 1,793 Italian prisoners of war, and 103 Polish soldiers (guards) off the coast of West Africa. After realising that the passengers were primarily POWs and civilians〔Doenitz, Grand Admiral Karl ''Memoirs, Ten Years and Twenty Days'': Frontline Books, 1990, p. 255〕 the U-boat started rescue operations while flying the Red Cross flag. A U.S. Army Air Corps bomber flying out of a secret South Atlantic airbase on Ascension Island attacked the U-boat. The U-boat abandoned the rescue effort and left the survivors to drift to Africa. Over half the survivors died. This incident led to German Admiral Dönitz issuing the Triton Null signal on 17 September 1942, which came to be known as the "Laconia Order"; the signal forbade submarine commanders from rescuing survivors from torpedoed ships. Outside Italy little was known of the details of the ''Laconia'' incident even to the present day. Although most of the crew were from Liverpool, most people had not heard the story as it was something not talked about. Due to the treatment of the Italian POWs, the American bombing and the resulting unrestricted warfare, the Allies were reluctant to acknowledge that mistakes were made.〔 For his part, Admiral Dönitz' actions in supporting the rescue were opposed by Hitler, who ordered that the sinking of ''Laconia'' be kept secret, and most senior officers complied.〔 Most present day opposition to telling the story came from the German production teams who worked on the 2010 television drama and who objected to Nazis being shown in a positive light.〔 For Captain Sharp, who went down with his ship, it was the second similar Cunard liner he lost to German attacks in just over two years. Sharp was also in command of which was sunk by German bombs on 17 June 1940 off the French port of St. Nazaire while taking part in Operation ''Ariel'', the evacuation of British nationals and troops from France, two weeks after the Dunkirk evacuation.〔Gattridge, Capt. Harry ''Captain of the Queens''. New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., 1956. p. 160〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Laconia incident」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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