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Originally Posted by irish1958
Question: why wouldn't the captain of a belligerent vessel hoist a neutral flag if not in a convoy, if this were effective in preventing an (for the captain) unpleasant outcome for his voyage?
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Early in the war u-boats stopped ships flying neutral flags and checked their papers (registration, cargo manifest etc). If the ship was found to be carrying supplies for Britain or France they would be sunk anyway. After it became too dangerous for this ships flying neutral flags would be sunk out-of-hand if they were in British waters.
Several German and Italian ships disguised themselves as Allies to avoid being sunk by Allied warships. A few of them were sunk by u-boats.