Do neutral vessels radio in enemy ships?

[Stealth Hunter]

Originally Posted by jimbuna

Neutrals shouldn't be calling for assistance....unless some unknown changes were made to the Schnellboot mod :hmm:

But if they ARE... THEN THEY'RE NOT NEUTRAL ANYMORE! SINK THAT MICK BASTARD!:rotfl:

I've never this before, though. Dunno what it could be.

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by Frank0001

Well, if neutral ships would radio in sighted U-boats, they should also report British destroyers!

There is a subtle difference here.....RN destroyers posed no threat to neutral merchants. However, U-boats on the other hand

hullo,

don't quite know bout the u-boats but i can tell you assuredly that
in case of Hilfskreuzer or German Auxiliary Cruisers, many a time when there were prefectly disguised as a neutral, existing ship, they crossed path with some real neutrals and these radioed some useless or uncanny message through the WL, once they were at some distance from the disguised raider, and this message by itself didnt imply the report of an enemy, but just a way to let know the have seen another ships, almost most nations which remained neutral but towards allies kept this habit and definitely was an order for merchant skippers.
My opinion is that a sub was much more likely to be reported, maybe used same ways, to say, send w.l. with some pre-arranged phrase or word for such unpleasant meetings

Cheers

[WilyPete]

Originally Posted by Tombow

Submarines don't obey prize rules (under which it would have been perfectly legal to stop a neutral for inspection and leave it afterwards). If I'm going to be sunk anyway, I'd better give a warning before. Increases the chance of being rescued afterwards. Being neutral means nothing if unrestricted submarine warfare is carried out.

What? Yes they did. At the beginning of the war. The u-boats obeyed prize rules and in fact some nuetral ships were scuttled because they were carrying contraband towards enemy ports.

[irish1958]

I am not sure an Irish ship would report a German sub. In 1940, the Irish were not particularly found of the British.

When have they ever been?

[Sgtmonkeynads]

Ok then...It was early 1941, when I recieved the message that the great F.D.R. gave orders for American ships to sink German U-Boats on sight. At this point the U.S. is still neutral, so......why was this not an act of war? This active neutrality of the U.S. seems like a bunch of crap to me, war should have been declared months before Pearl harbor. Unless, F.D.R. knew war was on the horrizon and just wanted an early start.

[Jimbuna]

Contrary to the popular belief by many English that the Irish aided U-boats with shelter and supplies on their western coast, there is no substantiated evidence to support such rumours.

However, this is probably as close as it gets:


Ireland’s close encounter with German U-Boat

Ryle Dwyer


AT 530 on the evening of Wednesday, October 4, 1939, the residents of Ballymore, a fishing village three miles west of Dingle, noticed a strange craft heading for the rock at Ventry Harbour. They rushed towards the shore and to their amazement found that members of the crew of the German submarine, U 35, were landing two Greek sailors from a rubber dinghy.
Young Jimmy Fenton had just returned home after school.
“I spotted a submarine on the surface of the sea at the entrance to Ventry Harbour, which was steaming towards land from the southwest,” he remembers. After landing the men, the German sailors rowed back to the U Boat and brought in two more men, and they continued to make the trip until 28 men were put ashore. They were survivors from a Greek freighter, Diamantis, which had been bound from Freetown to Barrow on Furness with 4,000 tons of iron ore when it was intercepted by the U Boat off south of Ireland the previous day. The sea was so rough at the time that one of their life boats was overturned and in a rare show of chivalry, the German commander, Kapitaenleutnant Werner Lott, ordered his crew to rescue the Greek sailors.
All 28 seamen from the Diamantis were brought on board the U 35. The Greek crew were offered beds and told to make themselves comfortable. The Germans supplied them with cigarettes, tea, and other refreshments. Some of the men later expressed their keen appreciation of the way in which they had been treated.
“When the Greek sailors said good bye to me on the conning tower they went on their knees and kissed my wedding ring as if I was a bishop,” Lott recalled. “I did not want this but they said ‘we owe our lives to you. You have treated us very nicely’.”
Young Jimmy Fenton was amazed at the attitude of the Greeks towards their German captors. They kept saying: “German skipper, goot man,” even though he had sunk their ship.
Paderas Panagos, the master of the Diamantis, explained that the Germans treated them with the greatest courtesy.
“They gave us their beds,” he explained. “The gave us their food and their cigarettes. They could not do enough for us. Lott asked us where we wished to be landed and we told him England. But he refused.”
“No, to Ireland, our friend,” said the German commander. “He then told us he would take us into Dingle Harbour and that we would be picked up by one of the fishing boats there,” Panagos said.
The U Boat came about a 100 yards from the shore and a number of people witnessed the ferrying of the Greek seamen to the beach. The ship wrecked crew gave some of the German cigarettes to the local people and they were treated hospitably at Maurice Cleary’s in The Cuisin, Ballymore. Five of the crew were suffering from shock and they were taken to Dingle hospital, where they spent the night.
After dropping off the Greek seamen, the U Boat left Ventry Harbour at a very slow speed. Some of the men, all of whom looked young, walked about the deck wearing oilskins and sou’westers. Others were on the conning tower. They waved to the crowd on shore before the U Boat submerged.
Much to the embarrassment of the Dublin government, the story was reported not only in the local newspapers but also in the international press. It actually made the cover story of Life Magazine on October 16, 1939. The owners of Life were anxious to keep America out of the war, so depicting Captain Lott and his crew in their true light tended to counter stories of Nazi brutality.
From the Taoiseach Eamon de Valera’s standpoint, however, the report was embarrassing because it gave credence to rumours that German U Boats were being succored by the Irish. Winston Churchill, the new First Lord of the Admiralty, had already warned the Deputy Chief of Naval Staff of the danger of German submarines off the Irish coast.
“There seems to be a good deal of evidence, or at any rate suspicion that U Boats were being succored from West of Ireland ports by the malignant section with whom de Valera dare not interfere,” Churchill wrote some days earlier. “If the U boat campaign becomes more dangerous we should coerce Southern Ireland.”
At a cabinet meeting on October 24, 1939 Churchill argued that the Dublin government should be told that “the use of the ports in Ireland by the Royal Navy was essential to the security of the Empire, and that the present attitude adopted by Ireland in that matter was intolerable”. He wanted to seize Irish bases, but Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain rejected the idea by warning that this “would have most unfortunate repercussions in the United States.”
When U 35 returned to Germany, Lott was reprimanded by Admiral Karl Donitz, the head of the German Navy, for endangering the life of his crew. But he was still in charge of U 35 on its next tour of duty.
At dawn on November 29, 1939, U 35 was cruising on the surface in the North Sea, east of the Shetland Islands when she was spotted by the British destroyer HMS Icarus. Blinded by the rising sun, the crew of U 35 failed to see the Icarus approaching until it was too late. The submarine managed to submerge but was hit and badly damaged in the ensuing depth charge attack. The Icarus was joined by other destroyers under the direction of the Captain of HMS Kelly, Lord Louis Mountbatten.
Realising that their vessel was doomed, Lott ordered the boat to surface. As U 35 flooded, the crew took to the water. HMS Kashmir fished four officers and 27 men from the frigid waters, while HMS Kingston picked up Lott and the other 11 members of his crew - all 43 of whom survived the ordeal.
Normally the British would not wait to rescue German sailors, because the British ships would be sitting targets for any other U boats in the vicinity, but on this occasion Mountbatten ordered that all of the German sailors be rescued.
Lott sought him out when they reached England. “I thanked him for the extraordinary efforts his destroyer made to pick us up,” Lott recalled.
“That is how life is,” Mountbatten replied. “You were extraordinary picking up the Greeks.”
In early 1940 the German prisoners were transferred to Canada, where they remained for the remainder of the war. After the conflict Lott made friends with Mountbatten and they corresponded with one another until Mountbatten was murdered by the Provisional IRA in bomb blast on his boat off Mullaghmore, Co Sligo, in 1979.

[Leandros]

Originally Posted by Tombow

Submarines don't obey prize rules (under which it would have been perfectly legal to stop a neutral for inspection and leave it afterwards). If I'm going to be sunk anyway, I'd better give a warning before. Increases the chance of being rescued afterwards. Being neutral means nothing if unrestricted submarine warfare is carried out.

To my knowledge prize and neutrality rules were observed by the Germans, as much as by the Allies (to the extent that they meant to be able to safeguard themselves). When, however, in a declared restricted area even a neutral had foresaken its protection as a neutral. I believe that went both ways....any radio traffic would generate a violent response. This was also the case with the German surface merchant raiders which generally were given good credits by those unlucky enough to be involved with them.

[Leandros]

Originally Posted by jimbuna

There is a subtle difference here.....RN destroyers posed no threat to neutral merchants. However, U-boats on the other hand

Subtle, indeed. That would depend on the load and destination of the neutral.....

[nikbear]

Blimey Jim,the Irony running through that whole story in the paper is amazing Fate has a funny sense of humor

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by nikbear

Blimey Jim,the Irony running through that whole story in the paper is amazing Fate has a funny sense of humor

It sure does matey

[Brag]

Originally Posted by Tombow

OK, I'll give it a go :rotfl:


Good morning,

This is Captain Tom aboard the <ship name omitted> under swedish flag with a cargo of rotting bananas (cargo hold refrigerator not working quite well) from Caracas to Karlskrona. As you see, I am under neutral flag and enroute between neutral ports. So, welcome to the neutral broadcast, your most actual and neutral source of information about marine warfare in the Atlantic.

First for you U-Boot guys out there, the really bad news is an american task force in Grid <unintelligible> consisting of one Essex-Class Carrier, one Buckley-Class Destroyer Escorts and three Fletcher-Class Destroyers heading <blip> at 18 Knots. Steady air patrol over the Taskforce. So if you have an itchy neck that can be cured only by a Knight's Cross try your teeth on it. For those of yours not so keen, there is a convoy of approximately 12 Liberty ships, 7 T2-Tankers and 20 smaller merchants last spotted 12 Hours ago at Grid <grrrrind> heading <unintelligible> at approx. 4,5 knots. Escort is 4 Black Swans and 2 Hunt III Destroyers with hedgehogs. The special news is a Balao Class sub operating some <blip> miles northwest of the Lesser Antiles. Thank you for listening and don't bother with my rusty can, the bananas are already rotting and I know you guys don't have refrigerators on board.

Now for you Royal Navy and US Navy guys, before you go after me and punish me for giving away your whereabouts, I can offer you a special discount on still edible bananas if you don't halt me for more than 4 hours with your inspections. Don't bother to look for spies in my crew, most of them doesn't know arse from ellbow and don't speak neither english not german. But maybe you want to check that brand spanking Type IX I spotted yesterday at ...N, ...W heading southwest and recharging batteries at day. Also, for those of you keen on firing your hedghehogs, today, there were several periscope sighings in the area between <transmission garbled for several seconds>. And for those who can't hit a barn door from 10 meters there is a badly damaged Type VIIC vusially unable to submerge around <blip>. Should be an easy spot since it is trailing an oil leak. Every silver lining has a cloud within and for you today it is a recent attack spotted on a convoy at <piiiiing> yesterday around 21.30. At least 2 Libertys spotted sinking, an unidentified ship spotted going up in a large explosion. Floating debris has been carried eastward by currents. Convoy possibly scattered. I didn't have the chance to pick any survivors, but if this is not your fighing day, yo may try.

This is today's neutral broadcast from Captain Tom. Thank you for listening. Unfortunately now I have to go and see if the cargo hold refrigerators can be fixed. Hear ya tomorrow and don't forget bananas still at discount price here. Be carful out there and happy hunting.

[Rip]

Originally Posted by irish1958

I am not sure an Irish ship would report a German sub. In 1940, the Irish were not particularly found of the British.

Last time I was in a pub there they still weren't all that fond of them.

[Rip]

Originally Posted by jimbuna

It sure does matey

Even more for me. I just spent many hours over the last few days studying up on Lord Louis Mountbatten and this incident and his correspondence with Gerhard Stamer later on. The U-35 page had tons of good info. This stuff absolutely fascinates me.