Quote:
|
Originally Posted by emtmedic005
Im going to get yelled at for this one but, you never saw U-571, the movie, they gun down a whole life boat full of women and children and a few guys.
plus i've read accounts where the sub would surface after sinking a warship and gunning down the crew, afterall they were trying to sink the sub.
|
If you can get a hold of a book called "10 years and 20 days". Its the autobiography from Karl Doenitz. He even said the willful killing of survivors was forbidden. Adm. Doentiz even went as far as to try and rescue survivors from a POW ship off the coast of AFrica that was torpedoed, and ended up getting in a lot of hot water by his higher ups for doing so. His Uboat captains FOUGHT him on his order to abandon the rescue efforts (even though under threat of getting bombed by allied bombers due to the carrying 100's of survivors on the decks of the uboat, therefore unable to submerge) .
The instances of Uboat captains ordering the shooting of survivors was VERY rare and punishable. The sad fact is that there were evil people on all sides from all countries that did things that Most leaders would not have approved of. But for the most part the common sailor, airman, soldier was a patriot in thier own minds, fighting for the honor of thier own country.