[Chock]

Despite the fact that SH is in essence a game, the moral issue of what a sub should attack is always an interesting one, and on the subject of me attacking a liner, here goes:

A neutral ship or a hospital ship would probably not be running with all its lights off, besides which, there is a long history of craft on mercy missions having been attacked. I think it's likely that genuinely neutral ships would have made their course known at the early stage in the war when my attack took place. I seriously doubt the IJN would have assigned four destroyers to escort a neutral ship, if not for logistical reasons then for the reason that in doing so, they would make it look like a belligerent.

In a slight aside, Atlantic Convoy rescue ships were often attacked while picking up survivors. To quote Bernard Edward's book 'Donitz and the Wolf Packs':

'Holtring (U604) found the rescue ship Stockport (named after my home town coincidentally) labouring in heavy seas astern of the convoy, returning to her station after picking up survivors from the Empire Trader. The tiny rescue ship, with no one in sight to come to her aid, went to the bottom, taking her crew of 64 and the 91 survivors she had on board with her. There can be no doubt that Holtring was well aware he had a rescue ship in his sights, for although they were not marked, these ships were easily identified by their size and construction (not sure I agree with that statement BTW). In the autumn of 42, Donitz had issued the following order to all U-Boats: There is generally in every convoy a so-called rescue ship, a special ship of up to 3,000 tons appointed to pick up the shipwrecked after U-Boat attack. Most of these are equipped with aircraft and large motor boats and are strongly armed and very manouevrable, so that they have frequently been described by Commanders as U-Boat traps. Their asinking is of great value in regard to the desired destruction of the steamer's crews.'

In that statement, Donitz does greatly overestimate the rescue ship's capabilities (Stockport, for example, was an ex LNER ship, built in 1911 and weighed in at 1,683 tons). Nevertheless, his comment about killing the crews she had rescued is a valid one in wartime, and she could, and doubtless would, use her radios to report U-Boat positions, which made her a legitimate target.

Churchill too, was not averse to issuing orders of a similar nature, notably in the Battle of Britain, when he issued a directive that the red-cross marked seaplanes which picked up downed German flyers in the English Channel should be attacked.

Dudley 'Mush' Morton is of course another famous name that crops up in debates of this nature, having (allegedly) condoned the machine gunning of survivors in lifeboats with the comment in reply to whether they should be rescued of: 'I don't want em! Do You?' Ironically, in that incident, it's widely regarded that many of the survivors he attacked were in fact Indian POWs.

In more modern times, Red Crosses still attract abuse from both sides. During the Viet Nam War, the Viet Cong cheerfully used the Red Crosses on the side of US Army Huey medevac choppers as aiming points. However, these choppers often dropped off ammo to troops on the ride in to pick up wounded in direct contravention of the Geneva Convention, but then again, they also evacuated wounded Viet Cong on occasion too, besides which, I'm fairly sure Viet Nam wasn't a GC signatory.

It's easy to stand at a distance and judge people in wartime, and their decisions, from the comfort of where we are now, but at the end of the day, war is a very nasty business. And simulating war is also likely to simulate that nastiness.