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Originally Posted by scandium
... Laconia incident being the most famous, where an American bomber was ordered to attack and sink a Uboat that was undertaking the rescue attempt of several hundred Italian and British survivors despite the U-boats prior repeated broadcasts, in english, to that effect and the large red cross flag draped across the bow of his ship). The Americans considered destroying the U-boat, despite the unavoidable killing of their British allies who were aboard in the process an operationa necessityl and one for which there were no later ramifications.
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I'm willing to bet we'll never see a movie of the Laconia incident - or maybe they will make the bomber attacking the sub British for good measure.
Seriously though, the skipper was a bit out of line even if it was an operational necessity. Machine-gunning survivors in a raft or on wreckage isn't kosher.
Then again, this was routinely done by American fighters and bombers after sinking Japanese ships - the Yamato being a case in point. Of course, those guys went home to steak and a heroes welcome.
One of the worst I think is the trial of Tomoyuki Yama****a, Tiger of Malaya and Masaharu Homma, the Anglophilic commander of the Japanese 14th Army. Their official crime - Yama****a, command responsibility for the massacres in Manila 1945 and Homma, ordering the notorious Death March (by the way there were 'death marches' at other times in history such as after the surrender of Kut Al Amarah in WW1 but this was the most famous.) Their real crime: humiliating the American Caesar Douglas MacArthur. Homma beat his army in 1942 and Yama****a held out in the mountains with his army till Japan surrendered and he had to follow suit. Both were hanged by the neck till dead. The ironic thing is Homma was 1) an Anglophile who was Japanese military attache on the Western Front in WW1 2) hamstrung by a tunnel visioned Japanese Imperial General Staff who demanded he capture Manila while destroying the American field army - you gotta choose one or the other 3) never ordered the prisoners maltreated and the many unfortunate incidents were a product mainly of the then prevailing Japanese military culture of brutality, individual decisions by officers and men on the spot and the fanaticism of ideologue Col.Tsuji. As for Yama****a he actually ordered the fanatical Japanese admiral who was planning to defend Manila to the death to withdraw as he was unsupported but because of the separation of Japanese Army and Navy he was ignored.
While the Japanese army did horrific things in the war this was more mean-spirited revenge than justice of any sort.
Mountbatten