General Discussions
This is the place to discuss general issues related to the U-boat war or the war at sea in WWII.
Re: American Prisoners on U-Boat ?
Posted by:
Ken Dunn
()
Date: July 27, 2007 01:29AM
Hi Paul,
I have no idea about the specific case you are asking about but it wasn’t unusual for a U-boat to occasionally fish a stray survivor out of the water and keep him onboard if there was no lifeboat or raft to put him in however generally survivors were left to fend for themselves as U-boats weren’t equipped to rescue survivors. This happened all through the war even after the Laconia order.
In one unusual case, Archie Gibbs an American merchant seaman was rescued by U-126 (Bauer) after U-126 sank his ship and kept onboard for a few days because there was no lifeboat to put him in. Bauer later stopped a neutral vessel by firing a shot across her bow and set Gibbs free rather than taking him back to France. This happened in 1942.
Most of them ended up in the special Milag camp for allied merchant seamen. Later in the war U-boats had orders to try to take Captains & Chief Engineers prisoner whenever possible as they, like most other merchant seamen, just went right back to sea if they managed to survive and it took years to train new ones. In those cases they would even remove them from lifeboats or rafts if they could identify them as being the Captain or Chief Engineer. It was either that or shoot them and Doenitz refused when Hitler ordered him to do that.
Regards,
Ken Dunn
I have no idea about the specific case you are asking about but it wasn’t unusual for a U-boat to occasionally fish a stray survivor out of the water and keep him onboard if there was no lifeboat or raft to put him in however generally survivors were left to fend for themselves as U-boats weren’t equipped to rescue survivors. This happened all through the war even after the Laconia order.
In one unusual case, Archie Gibbs an American merchant seaman was rescued by U-126 (Bauer) after U-126 sank his ship and kept onboard for a few days because there was no lifeboat to put him in. Bauer later stopped a neutral vessel by firing a shot across her bow and set Gibbs free rather than taking him back to France. This happened in 1942.
Most of them ended up in the special Milag camp for allied merchant seamen. Later in the war U-boats had orders to try to take Captains & Chief Engineers prisoner whenever possible as they, like most other merchant seamen, just went right back to sea if they managed to survive and it took years to train new ones. In those cases they would even remove them from lifeboats or rafts if they could identify them as being the Captain or Chief Engineer. It was either that or shoot them and Doenitz refused when Hitler ordered him to do that.
Regards,
Ken Dunn
