How a U-boat commander’s unprecedented act of mercy transformed into history’s most tragic rescue operation—and changed submarine warfare forever
The Message That Shocked the World
At 6:00 AM on September 13, 1942, radio operators across the South Atlantic picked up an extraordinary transmission broadcasting in clear English on international frequencies: “If any ship will assist the shipwrecked Laconia crew, I will not attack her provided I am not attacked by ship or air forces. I picked up 193 men.”
The sender was Korvettenkapitän Werner Hartenstein, commander of German U-boat U-156. Just hours earlier, he had torpedoed and sunk the British troopship RMS Laconia. Now, in an unprecedented display of humanity in the midst of total war, he was broadcasting an open plea for rescue assistance—and offering a temporary ceasefire to ships of any nationality.
But this wasn’t just any rescue. U-156’s deck was crammed with nearly 200 survivors, while four lifeboats containing another 200 men, women, and children bobbed behind the submarine in tow. Red Cross flags fluttered from the vessel’s bridge as other German U-boats raced to assist in what would become the largest rescue operation ever conducted by submarines.
What happened next would create one of World War II’s most extraordinary moral paradoxes: a German rescue mission that ended with an American bomber attack, resulting in more deaths than if the Germans had followed standard procedure and simply sailed away. The incident would reshape submarine warfare for the remainder of the war and raise uncomfortable questions about humanity, duty, and the rules of engagement that persist to this day.
The Luxury Liner Turned Death Trap
The story of the Laconia began not in war but in the golden age of ocean travel. Launched on April 9, 1921, RMS Laconia was a Cunard ocean liner built as successor to the original Laconia, which had been sunk during World War I. The new ship was 601.3 feet long with a beam of 73.7 feet, and made her maiden voyage on May 25, 1922, from Southampton to New York City.
In January 1923, she made the first around-the-world cruise, lasting 120 days and calling at 22 ports. But by September 1939, with war declared, Laconia’s passenger days ended. She was converted into an armed merchant cruiser, fitted with eight six-inch guns and two three-inch anti-aircraft guns, and by 1941 had been converted into a troopship for Atlantic runs.
By September 1942, Laconia had become a floating microcosm of wartime complexity. At the time of the attack, the Laconia was carrying 268 British personnel (including many women and nurses), 160 Polish soldiers (who were on guard), more than 80 civilians, and roughly 1,800 Italian prisoners of war. This mix of passengers would prove crucial to the coming tragedy.
The Italian POWs had been captured in North Africa and were being transported to Britain for internment. They were housed in the ship’s lower decks, conditions that would become lethal when the torpedoes struck. The Polish guards, many of whom had suffered under German occupation, harbored deep resentment toward both their German enemies and their Italian charges.
Captain Rudolph Sharp commanded Laconia—the same officer who had been in command when RMS Lancastria was sunk by the Luftwaffe in 1940 with the loss of over 4,000 lives, making it Britain’s worst maritime disaster. Sharp was an experienced captain facing his second wartime catastrophe.
The Hunter Who Became a Rescuer
Werner Hartenstein was not a typical Nazi officer. Born in Plauen on February 27, 1908, he joined the Reichsmarine in 1928. After service on surface vessels and torpedo boats during the Spanish Civil War and the first year of World War II, he transferred to the U-boat service in 1941. He was a career naval officer, not an ideological Nazi, and his actions would soon demonstrate a moral code that transcended national allegiances.
On the evening of September 12, 1942, U-156 was patrolling 600 nautical miles south of Cape Palmas, en route to operations off Cape Town. At 10:22 PM, Hartenstein spotted the large British ship sailing alone and unescorted. Under the rules of war, an armed merchant vessel was a legitimate target, and Hartenstein ordered the attack.
At 10:22 p.m. she transmitted a message on the 600 m (500 kHz) band: “SSS SSS 0434 South / 1125 West Laconia torpedoed.” “SSS” was the code signifying “under attack by submarine”.
Two torpedoes struck Laconia in quick succession. There was an explosion in the hold and many of the Italian prisoners aboard were killed instantly. The vessel immediately took a list to starboard and settled heavily by the bow. Captain Sharp ordered the ship abandoned, but in the chaos that followed, the true horror of the situation became apparent.
The Horror in the Water
As Laconia listed and began to sink, the compartmentalization that had kept passengers separated by nationality and status became a death sentence. Survivors later recounted how Italians in the water were either shot or had their hands severed by axes if they tried to climb into a lifeboat. The blood soon attracted sharks.
The scene in the water was apocalyptic. Corporal Dino Monte, one of the few Italian survivors, later stated: “sharks darted among us. Grabbing an arm, biting a leg. Other larger beasts swallowed entire bodies.”
Many of the 32 lifeboats had been destroyed in the explosions, leaving the survivors overcrowded in the remaining boats or struggling in the oil-slicked water. The Polish guards, traumatized by their own experiences under German occupation, showed little mercy to the Italian prisoners. Some British passengers, facing their own mortality, abandoned principles of common humanity in the struggle to survive.
An hour after the first torpedo struck, Laconia slipped beneath the waves, taking Captain Sharp and hundreds of Italian prisoners still trapped below decks to their deaths. But for Hartenstein, now surfacing to capture any senior officers for intelligence purposes, the real shock was just beginning.
The Decision That Changed Everything
As Laconia was going under, bow first, U-156 surfaced to capture the ship’s surviving senior officers. To their surprise, they saw over 2,000 people struggling in the water. Realising that the passengers were primarily POWs and civilians, Hartenstein immediately began rescue operations whilst flying the Red Cross flag.
What Hartenstein saw in the water defied every assumption about legitimate military targets. These weren’t just enemy combatants—they were Italian allies, women, children, and wounded soldiers. The realization that he had just killed more Italians than British sailors in a single attack appears to have shocked him into immediate action.
Clay Blair, the noted naval historian, speculates that Hartenstein may have been concerned about the effect his action would have on German relations with Italy. Alternatively he also may have had humanitarian considerations. Whatever his motivation—political, humanitarian, or both—Hartenstein’s decision was immediate and unprecedented.
By 1:25 AM on September 13, Hartenstein radioed his superiors: “Sunk by Hartenstein, British Laconia, Qu FF7721, 310 deg. Unfortunately with 1,500 Italian POWs; 90 fished out of the water so far. Request orders.”
The response from Admiral Karl Dönitz was swift and comprehensive. The head of submarine operations immediately ordered seven U-boats from wolfpack Eisbär to divert to the scene. Additional submarines were dispatched: U-506 under Kapitänleutnant Erich Würdemann, U-507 under Korvettenkapitän Harro Schacht, and even the Italian submarine Comandante Cappellini. Vichy French warships were requested to assist from West African ports.
The Impossible Rescue

What followed was a rescue operation unlike any other in naval history. U-156 was soon crammed above and below decks with nearly 200 survivors, including five women, and had another 200 in tow aboard four lifeboats. The submarine’s deck, designed for a crew of 52, now accommodated nearly 200 additional people.
Survivor accounts paint an extraordinary picture of enemies caring for each other in the midst of war. British Commander Geoffrey Greet later recalled: “Hartenstein spoke very good English. He assured me there were boats coming from Dakar.” The German crew provided food, water, and medical care to their former enemies.
The scene was surreal: a German warship flying Red Cross flags, its deck crowded with British civilians, Italian POWs, and wounded soldiers, while lifeboats filled with survivors trailed behind as the submarine headed slowly toward the African coast. Similar scenes were repeated as other U-boats arrived: U-506 took on 151 survivors including women and children, while U-507 rescued 91, including 15 women and 16 children.
For two and a half days, the rescue operation continued unmolested. The submarines moved slowly toward their rendezvous with Vichy French warships, their crews focused entirely on keeping hundreds of survivors alive. It was, as one historian noted, “humanity’s triumph over the machinery of war.”
But the machinery of war was not finished with them yet.
The Attack That Shattered Everything
On September 16, at 11:25 AM, U-156 was spotted by an American B-24 Liberator bomber flying from the secret airbase on Ascension Island. The submarine was traveling on the surface with a large Red Cross flag draped across her gun deck, her deck crowded with survivors, and four lifeboats in tow behind her.
Lieutenant James D. Harden of the US Army Air Forces saw the extraordinary scene below him. Hartenstein signalled to the pilot in both Morse code and English requesting assistance. A British officer also messaged the aircraft: “RAF officer speaking from German submarine, Laconia survivors on board, soldiers, civilians, women, children.”
Harden radioed his base for instructions. The senior officer on duty was Captain Robert C. Richardson III, who would later claim he was unaware of Hartenstein’s radio message about the rescue operation. Richardson later claimed he believed that the rules of war at the time did not permit a combat ship to fly Red Cross flags.
Richardson’s order was unambiguous: “Sink the sub.”
At 12:32 PM, Harden returned and began his attack runs. One landed among the lifeboats in tow behind U-156, killing dozens of survivors, while others straddled the submarine itself, causing minor damage. The scene became one of indescribable horror as bombs exploded among crowded lifeboats and survivors were forced into shark-infested waters.
Hartenstein had no choice but to cast the lifeboats adrift and put the survivors on his deck back into the sea so that he could dive and save his boat. The submarine submerged slowly to give those still on deck a chance to escape into the water, abandoning hundreds of survivors to their fate.
The Order That Changed Naval Warfare
The attack on the rescue operation sent shockwaves through the German naval command. Admiral Dönitz was furious at what he saw as Allied perfidy—attacking a clearly marked rescue operation conducted under international Red Cross protocols.
On September 17, 1942, Dönitz issued what became known as the Laconia Order: “All efforts to save survivors of sunken ships, such as the fishing out of swimming men and putting them on board lifeboats, the righting of overturned lifeboats, or the handing over of food and water, must stop.”
The order continued with chilling finality: “Rescue contradicts the most basic demands of the war: the destruction of hostile ships and their crews… Be harsh. Remember that the enemy has no regard for women and children when bombing German cities!”
This marked the end of traditional naval chivalry in submarine warfare. From that point forward, German U-boats were forbidden from conducting rescue operations, ushering in unrestricted submarine warfare for the remainder of the war. The old “cruiser rules,” which had governed submarine conduct and required attempts to save survivors, were effectively dead.
The Final Reckoning
The Vichy French ships arrived the next day and managed to rescue approximately 1,083 survivors from the lifeboats and submarines. In all, 1,113 of Laconia’s original compliment of 2,732 survived the sinking. Nearly all of the dead (88%) were Italian prisoners of war.
The casualty figures tell a grim story: of the approximately 1,800 Italian POWs aboard Laconia, only about 415 survived. The sinking and its aftermath claimed more than 1,600 lives, making it one of the worst maritime disasters of the war.
For the key participants, the consequences were severe. Werner Hartenstein, along with U-156 and all hands, were lost on their next cruise. They were victims of another aerial depth charge attack on 8-Mar-1943 while 350 miles east of Barbados, this time from a PBY Catalina patrol aircraft. None of the three German U-boat captains involved in the rescue operation survived the war—all their submarines were sunk by Allied aircraft.
Captain Richardson, who ordered the attack on the rescue operation, went on to become a career US Air Force officer, retiring in 1967 as Brigadier General. The B-24 crew were awarded medals for the alleged sinking of U-156, though they had actually only damaged the submarine and destroyed lifeboats filled with survivors.
The Trial That Revealed the Truth
The full truth about the Laconia Incident only emerged at the post-war Nuremberg trials, when Admiral Dönitz was charged with war crimes partly based on the Laconia Order. The prosecution argued that the order effectively authorized the murder of survivors, making Dönitz guilty of crimes against humanity.
The prosecution’s case backfired spectacularly when the defense revealed the circumstances that led to the order. The heroic German rescue attempt and its tragic ending by Allied bombing created an uncomfortable moral complexity that the prosecutors had not anticipated.
Even more damaging to the prosecution was testimony from US Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz, who provided written testimony that the US Navy in the Pacific had engaged in very similar unrestricted submarine warfare from the first day of the Pacific War. The revelation that Allied forces had practiced the same policies they were prosecuting as war crimes severely undermined the case.
The Tribunal concluded: “The evidence does not establish with the certainty required that Doenitz deliberately ordered the killing of shipwrecked survivors. The orders were undoubtedly ambiguous and deserve the strongest censure.” Dönitz was found guilty of violating the Naval Protocol but was not sentenced on those grounds due to evidence of similar Allied conduct.
The Long Shadow of Moral Complexity
The Laconia Incident reveals the profound moral complexities of total war, where individual acts of humanity clash with military necessity and strategic considerations. Hartenstein’s decision to rescue survivors was unprecedented in its scope and humanity, yet it led directly to a policy that eliminated such humanitarian gestures for the remainder of the war.
The incident also highlights the tragic irony of modern warfare: the very attempt to maintain human dignity in combat can become a strategic vulnerability. The American attack on the rescue operation, while militarily justifiable under the rules of engagement, created a moral paradox where following orders led to the deaths of the very people the Germans were trying to save.
Perhaps most troubling is the incident’s demonstration of how quickly humanitarian instincts can be overwhelmed by the momentum of total war. Washington and London hushed up the Laconia incident to avoid negative headlines, while Berlin used it to justify abandoning all rescue efforts. The truth would remain buried for nearly 20 years.
Survivors and Memory
Among the survivors was Helen Charles, then just five months old, who became the youngest survivor of the sinking. Her remarkable family story—from Malta through Egypt to South Africa and onto the doomed Laconia—exemplifies the global reach and human cost of the war.
Decades later, survivors would travel to Germany to attend International Submarine Connection meetings, memorial societies formed to promote friendship between former enemies. The fact that former Laconia survivors would eventually honor Werner Hartenstein’s memory speaks to the complex legacy of the incident.
The Price of Following Orders
The Laconia Incident forces us to confront uncomfortable questions about duty, humanity, and the rules of war. Captain Richardson’s decision to order the attack followed military protocol—a submarine is a legitimate target regardless of circumstances. Yet his orders resulted in the deaths of hundreds of the very people Germany was trying to save.
Similarly, Hartenstein’s decision to conduct the rescue violated standard military procedure and ultimately endangered his submarine and crew. Yet his actions saved over 1,000 lives and demonstrated that even in total war, individual moral choice remains possible.
The incident illustrates how the machinery of modern warfare can transform acts of humanity into strategic vulnerabilities, and how the fog of war can make heroes and villains of the same people depending on perspective and timing.
A Legacy of Questions
Today, the Laconia Incident is remembered through multiple lenses: as German heroism, Allied pragmatism, humanitarian tragedy, and strategic necessity. The 2011 BBC miniseries “The Sinking of the Laconia” brought renewed attention to the story, presenting it as a complex moral drama without easy answers.
The incident remains relevant to contemporary discussions about the laws of war, humanitarian intervention, and the treatment of non-combatants in conflict zones. It demonstrates that even in the midst of humanity’s darkest conflicts, individual conscience can assert itself—and that sometimes the most humanitarian action can have the most tragic consequences.
The final lesson of the Laconia Incident may be that in total war, there are no pure heroes or villains, only human beings making impossible choices under extraordinary circumstances. Werner Hartenstein’s decision to rescue his enemies cost him his life and led to policies that cost thousands more lives. Yet his actions also saved over 1,000 people and proved that even in the depths of mechanized warfare, human decency could still assert itself.
The fact that this remarkable story remained largely unknown for decades speaks to how uncomfortable truths about war are often buried in favor of simpler narratives. The Laconia Incident reminds us that the most important stories of warfare may not be about tactical brilliance or strategic victory, but about moments when ordinary people chose humanity over orders, compassion over protocol, and moral courage over military necessity.
In the end, the tragedy of the Laconia was not just the loss of life, but the loss of humanity’s brief victory over the machinery of war—a victory so complete that it could not survive the very conflict that created it.
FURTHER READING: The Laconia Incident
For readers interested in exploring this extraordinary story of moral complexity in warfare, these carefully researched books provide comprehensive accounts of the incident and its lasting impact:
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