RELATED TOPICS

Children’s Overseas Reception Board (CORB)

When the Luftwaffe began bombing Britain in 1940 the government decided to set up a Children's Overseas Reception Board (CORB) which arranged for children to be sent to Australia, Canada and the United States. In the first few months over 210,000 children were registered with the scheme.

After the City of Bernares was sunk by a German torpedo on September 17, 1940, killing 73 children, the overseas evacuation program was brought to a halt. By this time the Children's Overseas Reception Board had sent 2,664 children overseas. Most of these went to Canada.

Wealthy parents continued to send their children to safe countries. It is estimated that during the first two years of the war around 14,000 children were privately sent away. [Reference: Spartacus Educationl]

Read more by clicking HERE.

Cruiser Rules / Prize Rules

Prize rules or cruiser rules govern the taking of prizes: vessels captured on the high seas during war. They are intertwined with the blockade rules.

Customary rules were originally laid down in the days of sailing ships. These were supplemented by various international agreements including the Declaration of Paris (1856) and the Hague Conventions (1899 and 1907) and other naval agreements during the 20th century. Although these rules are still part of the laws of war, changes in technology like the radio and the submarine made them redundant between belligerents during World War I and World War II. Still, the Nuremberg Tribunal found that these rules were still applicable to neutral merchant shipping.

Prize rules state that passenger ships may not be sunk, crews of merchant ships must be placed in safety before their ships may be sunk (life boats are not considered a place of safety unless close to land); and only warships and merchant ships that are a threat to the attacker may be sunk without warning.

In 1856 and afterward, numerous states, including the United Kingdom, Austria-Hungary, France, Prussia, Russia, Sardinia and the Ottoman Empire, ratified the Declaration of Paris. It regulated the relationship between neutral and belligerent and shipping on the high seas when the signatories were fighting each other, but not when fighting non-signatory nations. The United States withheld its formal adherence in 1857.

The Rules
Part IV, Art. 22 of the Treaty for the Limitation and Reduction of Naval Armaments, relates to submarine warfare. It states as follows:

1. In their action with regard to merchant ships, submarines must conform to the rules of international law to which surface vessels are subject.
2. In particular, except in the case of persistent refusal to stop on being duly summoned, or of active resistance to visit or search, a warship, whether surface vessel or submarine, may not sink or render incapable of navigation a merchant vessel without having first placed passengers, crew and ship's papers in a place of safety. For this purpose the ship's boats are not regarded as a place of safety unless the safety of the passengers and crew is assured, in the existing sea and weather conditions, by the proximity of land, or the presence of another vessel which is in a position to take them on board.

All sides signed treaties (the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907) subscribing to rules of prize warfare before World War I and they were also in effect during World War II. During 1914-1917, Germany adhered to the prize rules until it declared unrestricted submarine warfare. During World War II, Germany adhered to the prize rules for the first two months of the conflict in 1939 before turning again to unrestricted submarine warfare. The United States Navy applied unrestricted submarine warfare during the Pacific War. In addition, the Royal Navy and the Soviet Navy employed unrestricted submarine warfare during World War II against Germany in the Skagerrak and the Baltic Sea, respectively.

In 1912, British Admiral Sir John "Jackie" Fisher, by then a retired First Sea Lord, presented a paper to the Cabinet. He developed the argument that submarines would find adherence to prize rules impossible for practical reasons: a submarine could not capture a merchant ship, for it would have no spare manpower to deliver the prize to a neutral port; it could not take survivors or prisoners, for lack of space: "there is nothing a submarine can do except sink her capture." If a merchant ship were armed, as was permitted by a conference in London in 1912, then a submarine was under more pressure to destroy a ship. He asked, "What if the Germans were to use submarines against commerce without restriction?"

This last comment was thought to be unsupportable. Winston Churchill, then First Lord of the Admiralty, supported by senior naval opinion, said it was inconceivable that "this would ever be done by a civilised power." However, it was Fisher who was proven correct.

The treaties are still in effect today.

Hell Ships

A hell ship is a ship with extremely unpleasant living conditions or with a reputation for cruelty among the crew. It now generally refers to the ships used by the Imperial Japanese Navy and Army to transport Allied prisoners of war (POWs) and romushas (Asian forced laborers) out of the Dutch East Indies, the Philippines, Hong Kong and Singapore in World War II. The POWs were taken to Japan, Taiwan, Manchuria, Korea, the Moluccas, Sumatra, Burma or Siam to be used as forced labor.

The Japanese Hell Ships
Lisbon Maru was carrying 2,000 British POWs from Hong Kong to Japan in appalling conditions when torpedoed by USS Grouper on 1 October 1942. 800 POWs died when the ship sank the following day. Many were shot or otherwise killed by the ship's Japanese guards.

Rakuyo Maru was torpedoed 12 September 1944 by USS Sealion which later realized the ship carried Allied POWs. Footage of some of the survivors subsequently being picked up by the submarine is available HERE.

Suez Maru was a 4,645-ton freighter with passenger accommodation. She sailed on 25 November 1943 with 548 POW (415 British and 133 Dutch) from Ambon bound for Surabaya. The POWs were all sick men from the work-camps on the Moluccas and Ambon. Twenty were stretcher cases. On 29 November 1943 the ship was torpedoed by USS Bonefish (SS-223) near Kangean Island east of Madoera Island. Most of the POWs drowned in the holds of the ship. Those who escaped from the holds and left the ship were shot by the Japanese. There were no POW survivors.

Bunyo Maru was a 5,300 ton transport carrying mainly Indian POWs of the 2nd Battalion, 16th Punjab Regiment, plus escorting forces from the 26th Field Ordnance Depot. It was torpedoed by Wahoo (SS-238), commanded by Commander Dudley W. Morton, on 26 January 1943 . Morton was responsible for ordering the machine gunning of the shipwrecked survivors, in the water, including the POWs. The Hague Convention of 1907 bans the killing of shipwreck survivors under any circumstances. Whatever the case, Morton and his executive officer O'Kane had misidentified the survivors as Japanese.

Shinyo Maru was attacked by the submarine USS Paddle on 7 September 1944. Two torpedo hits sank the ship and killed several hundred U.S., Dutch and Filipino servicemen. Japanese guarding the prisoners opened fire on them while they were trying to abandon ship or swim to the nearby island of Mindanao. 47 Japanese and 687 Allied POWs were killed.

The 5,065-ton tramp steamer Junyo Maru sailed from Batavia (Tandjoeng Priok) on 16 September 1944 with about 4,200 romusha slave labourers and 2,300 POWs aboard. These Dutch POWs included 1,600 from the 10th Battalion camp and 700 from the Kampong Makassar camp. This 23rd transport of POWs from Java was called Java Party 23. Java Party 23 included about 6,500 men bound for Padang on the west coast of Sumatra to work on the Sumatra railway (Mid-Sumatra). On 18 September 1944 the ship was 15 miles off the west coast of Sumatra near Benkoelen when HMS Tradewind hit her with two torpedoes, one in the bow and one in the stern. About 4,000 romushas and 1,626 POWs died when the ship sank in 20 minutes. About 200 romushas and 674 POWs were rescued by Japanese ships and taken to the Prison in Padang, where eight prisoners died.

The 600-ton Maros Maru (sometimes called Haruyoshi Maru) sailed from Ambon on 17 September 1944 routed along the south-coast of Celebes with about 500 British and Dutch POWs bound for Surabaya. On 21 September 1944 the ship arrived at Muna Island south of Celebes) to embark 150 POWs. The ship required engine repairs upon arrival in Makassar. Here 159 POWs died in the holds in the 40 days required to complete repairs. They got a seaman’s grave in the harbour of Makassar. Only 327 POWs survived when the ship reached Surabaya on 26 November 1944. They were transported by train to the Kampong Makassar camp in Batavia (Meester Cornelis), and arrived on 28 November 1944.

Oryoku Maru was a 7,363-ton passenger cargo liner transporting 1,620 survivors of the Bataan Death March, Corregidor and other battles. She left Manila on 13 December 1944, and over the next two days was bombed and strafed by U.S. planes. About 270 died aboard ship. Some died from suffocation or dehydration. Others were killed in the attack or drowned while escaping the sinking ship. A colonel, in his official report, wrote:Many men lost their minds and crawled about in the absolute darkness armed with knives, attempting to kill people in order to drink their blood or armed with canteens filled with urine and swinging them in the dark. The hold was so crowded and everyone so interlocked with one another that the only movement possible was over the heads and bodies of others. After Oryoku Maru sank in Subic Bay in December 1944, Enoura Maru was bombed in the harbor of Takao in January 1945.

Brazil Maru transported the last surviving Allied POWs to Moji, Japan. There the Japanese medics were shocked at the wasted condition of the POWs and used triage to divide them. The 110 most severe cases were taken to a primitive military hospital in Kokura where 73 died within a month. Four other groups were sent to Fukuoka POW camps 1, 3, 4 and 17. Of 549 men alive when the ship docked, only 372 survived the war. Some eventually went to a POW camp in Jinsen, Korea, where they were given light duty, mainly sewing garments for the Japanese Army.

How does the law protect in war?

How Does Law Protect in War? by Marco Sassoli and Antoine A. Bouvier is the first book of its kind in the field of International Humanitarian Law. A selection of 193 cases provides university professors, practitioners and students with the most updated and comprehensive selection of documents on International Humanitarian Law. A comprehensive outline of International Humanitarian Law puts the contents of these cases into their systematic context and theoretical perspective.

The Online Casebook can be found on the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) web site. Click HERE for the introductory text on Naval Warfare.

Prize Law

Dutch Warship Towing Prize (1908)

During times of war, belligerent states may attempt to interfere with maritime commerce to prevent ships from carrying goods that will aid the war effort of an opponent. After ships are captured and brought to a friendly port, a local tribunal called a prize court will determine the legality of the seizure, or the destruction of the vessel and cargo if the vessel cannot be sailed to a friendly port. The body of customary International Law and treaties that determines the appropriateness of such actions is referred to as prize law.

Prize law has not been completely consistent in its development because the tribunals that rule on the seizure of the vessel are national tribunals and may reflect the interests of the belligerent state in interdicting the enemy war effort. The expanding scope of warfare and the concept of total war have also blurred the distinction between vessels subject to capture as a prize of war and those that are exempt. Some basic rules remain, however. All vessels of an enemy state are subject to seizure at any time by an opposing belligerent. Warships may be sunk immediately, and private merchant vessels are to be taken to a friendly port, if possible, for adjudication by a prize court. A neutral vessel on the high seas or in a belligerent's territorial sea may be stopped and searched, if it is suspected of carrying contraband, and may be condemned as a prize of war if any is found. Finally the right of coastal fishing vessels of any state to be free from seizure while plying their trade is almost universally recognized. 

[Reference: The Free Dictionary]

Q-Ships

Q-ships, also known as Q-boats, decoy vessels, special service ships, or mystery ships, were heavily armed merchant ships with concealed weaponry, designed to lure submarines into making surface attacks. This gave Q-ships the chance to open fire and sink them. The basic ethos of every Q-ship was to be a wolf in sheep's clothing.

They were used by the British Royal Navy (RN) during WWI and by both the RN and the United States Navy during WWII, as a counter measure against German and Japanese submarines.

Q-SHIPS OF WWI

The advent of the U-boat called for
unique and daring ways to fight them.

The date was 30 April 1917. It looked so easy for Baron Karl von Spiegel. The crew of the schooner had taken to their lifeboats in blind terror at the sight of his submarine, the U-93, and he could save a badly-needed torpedo by sinking the abandoned vessel with his deck gun.
   But it was the Baron himself who made things too easy. He took the U-93 to within 80 yards and, in the next instant, it was the hunter who would become the hunted.
   “As the first shell just hit at the water line,” he would be fortunate to recall later for American journalist Lowell Thomas, “there was a loud whistle aboard the schooner.
   “The white war ensign of Great Britain ran up the mast and a movable gun platform slid into view.

   “A roar and a rattling, and 7.5 cm guns opened at us, and machine-guns, too. We offered a fair, broadside target. One shell put our fore gun crew out of commission and wounded several of our gun crew. Another shell crashed into our hull.”
   The Baron shouted for full speed ahead, but the engines had been hit and the U-93 was drifting helplessly. “Shells were striking the boat and exploding with savage pow-pows,” he was to relate to Thomas.
   The Baron and his crewmen desperately tried to work the deck gun. “A shell burst into our faces,” he told Thomas. “The petty officer of the gun crew fell back with his blown off.

   “Then I felt a cold sensation about my legs. A moment later, we were swimming in the Atlantic. The U-93 had sunk beneath us. I could see her black shadow vanish in the depths of the ocean.”
   Baron von Spiegel, as apparent sole survivor, was hauled aboard his intended victim, ironically named for him the Prize. He had become a casualty of the most secret, ingenious, but later controversial, weapon in the Royal Navy’s arsenal for its death struggle with the German submarines attempting to starve Great Britain into submission during World War I.

Click HERE to continue reading ...

Raiders ~ Auxiliary / Merchantmen / Commerce

Auxiliary cruisers, aka armed merchantmen, were merchant ships converted into armed vessels and employed either for convoy protection or commerce raiding. In the latter role, they were disguised as merchant ships, but equipped with hidden cruiser-size guns, false funnels, torpedo tubes, mines, float planes for scouting and wore false colors, markings and flags. Their appearance was used to trick enemy merchant ships into approaching thinking they were but harmless steamers. Their speed, combined with their float planes, enabled them to search large areas of ocean for prey. Once located, the auxiliary cruiser's big guns could defeat any merchant or smaller combatant.

In the days of sail, piracy and privateers, many merchantmen would be routinely armed, especially those engaging in long distance and high value trade. The most famous of this type were the East Indiamen able to defeat regular warships in battle (see Battle of Pulo Aura).

In more modern times, auxiliary cruisers were used offensively to disrupt trade chiefly during both WWI and WWII, particularly by Germany.

Commerce raiding is a form of naval warfare used to destroy or disrupt logistics of the enemy on the open sea by attacking its merchant shipping, rather than engaging its combatants or enforcing a blockade against them. It is also known, in French, as guerre de course (literally, "war of the chase") and, in German, Handelskrieg ("trade war"), from the nations most heavily committed to it historically as a strategy.

Commerce raiding was heavily criticized by the naval theorist A.T. Mahan, who regarded it as a distraction from the destruction of the enemy's fighting power. Nevertheless, commerce raiding was an important part of naval strategy from the Early Modern period through WWII.

Usually, commerce raiding is chosen by a weaker naval power against a stronger, or by a nation with little ocean-going trade against one with a great deal. The best protection against a commerce raiding strategy is for merchant vessels to sail in convoy, protected by naval escorts.

U-Boats

U Boats out!

At UBoat.net you will find all the German submarines (U-boats) of both World Wars, their commanding officers and operations including all Allied ships attacked, technological information and much more. You can also browse its large photo gallery and thousands of U-boat books and movies. While hundreds of U-boats were lost some of the boats are preserved as museums today.

It also has a huge section covering the Allied forces and their struggle with the U-boat threat - not to mention the Pacific war. Included there are all the Allied Warships and thousands of Allied Commanding officers from all the major navies (US Navy, Royal Navy, etc.) plus technical pages and information on the air forces.

Click HERE for the UBoat.net site.