This is the Wilhelm Gustloff marked as a hospital ship. I don't know how easily this would have been seen by a sub commander at night. All the Allied hospital ships I've seen have large crosses amidships near the waterline.
Sinking a civilian ship packed with civilians is a war crime.
The Germans did far worse to Russian civilians. By the end of the war, the armies on the Eastern Front mostly didn’t recognize the concept of civilian any more.
Makes it understandable, though not excusable.
Assuming that the sub commander knew that, you're right. However, only the defeated get charged with war crimes.
According to the article, about 1,000 of the passengers were military.
Moreover, an enemy-flagged ship in a declared war zone is a legitimate target.
True but the world didn’t have a lot of sympathy for the Germans at that point. Unless there was something of value to them, I doubt the nazis would have done anything different.
It is interesting how war changed from WWI to WWII. My great grandfather came to the USA on the SS mount temple which was later sunk by the Germans in WWI. A couple of Mount Temple crew members were killed but they were firing back with deck mounted guns. The Germans removed the few remaing crew and passengers and scuttled the ship. Interestingly enough, the primary cargo was fossils.
Somewhere out there are photos of the sinking but I don’t feel like hunting them right now.
Total war is totL war. Large ships are targets. Sad but true.
it is the process of fabricating war crimes that has put us in the untenable position we find ourselves today. we can not defend our selves from enemies because of lawyers that enrich themselves cobbling up and prosecuting war crimes
This is the Wilhelm Gustloff marked as a hospital ship. I don't know how easily this would have been seen by a sub commander at night. All the Allied hospital ships I've seen have large crosses amidships near the waterline.
As is shooting down a civilian airliner filled with hundreds of innocent men, women, and children. The Ruskis haven't changed their stripes much in seventy years.
“Sinking a civilian ship packed with civilians is a war crime.”
There is no such thing as a crime in war. Liberals want you to think that, so I guess they succeeded. “War crimes” has led to wars being fought in the fashion of Korea and Vietnam, and now Iraq and Afghanistan, whereby the military is used as meals-on-wheel and other silly nonsense.
If you don’t like war then don’t wage war. War is killing people and breaking things, not lawyers and courts.