The Laconia incident

U-boats attempt to save the lives of those in the water

At 22.00 on the 12th September 1942 the German U-boat U-156 torpedoed and sank the liner RMS Laconia off the coast of West Africa. The Laconia had been pressed into war service as a troop ship and carried 463 crew, 286 British military personnel, 103 Polish soldiers who were guarding a staggering 1793 Italian POWs taken in the war against Rommel and eighty civilian passengers and they were now to be lost at sea but then the U-boat did something no one expected.

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Rescue attempts of the Lcaonia’s survivors

Laconia was a vessel of the Cunard White Star Line but she was not the first Cunard vessel to carry the name. The previous Laconia had her maiden voyage on the 20th January 1912 but had been acquired from the Cunard line by the Admiralty as an armed merchant cruiser with eight 6” guns fitted to her and two seaplanes and would take part in operations off German East Africa before returning to England in June 1916. Once more under Cunard control the liner went back into service but on the 25th February 1917, six miles northwest by west of Fastnet she was torpedoed by the Sm U-50. After twenty minutes, and seeing the vessel hadn’t sunk and was doing alright, Kapitanleutnant Gerhard Berger put another torpedo into her. In all twelve people were killed whilst 280 survived. Of the dead Mrs Mary Hoy and her daughter, Elizaeth, were Americans and their loss was yet another nail in the coffin of German-US relations. She was the fifteenth largest vessel lost in the War.

The Laconia of today’s post was laid down at the Swan Hunter yard at Wallsend and she was launched on 9th April 1921. The Laconia was 601 feet long with a tonnage of 19695 Gross register tonnes and could carry 350 First class passengers, 350 Second Class passengers and 1500 third class. During her career she carried out the first round the world cruise and was the first continuous circumnavigation of the world by a passenger liner. Much like her predecessor she was pressed into war service by the Admiralty on the 4th September 1939 and was fitted with eight 6” guns and two 3” anti-aircraft guns and escorted convoys out to Bermuda. 

After a refit to make her a troopship she was dispatched for operations out to the Middle East and back. On her final voyage she was sailing for home from Cape Town via Free town using a zig-zag course.

The evacuation was very chaotic with thirty two of :Laconia’s lifeboats destroyed and the liner going down by the head, her forecastle soon awash. 

One survivor, a missionary nurse called Doris Hawkins recalled the chaotic loading of the lifeboats. She had been escorting a 14 month old orphan girl named Sally for the journey to England, sadly Sally was lost to the sea.

"We found ourselves on top of the arms and legs of a panic-stricken mass of humanity. The lifeboat, filled to capacity with men, women and children, was leaking badly and rapidly filling with water; at the same time it was crashing against the ship's side. Just as Sally was passed over to me, the boat filled completely and capsized, flinging us all into the water. I lost her. I did not hear her cry, even then, and I'm sure that God took her immediately to Himself without suffering. I never saw her again."

Korvettenkapitan Werner Hartenstein

Korvettenkapitän Werner Hartenstein was a thirty five year old with some fifteen years naval service having singed up for the Navy in 1928. Watching the liner sink nad the crew abandon ship he decided to order his U-boat to surface and capture any of the ship’s senior officers for intelligence purposes. When they breached the surface he found something he really did not expect. Through the darkness and amongst the cries for help from the mass of humanity trying to survive in the water he and his officers heard Italian voices and he immediately feared the worst; he'd torpedoed an Italian vessel, Friendly had happened before when a Messerschmitt 110 had shot down an Italian civilian air transport and the nature of U-boat warfare meant you shot first and asked questions later.

He began to pull survivors out of the water to try and ascertain the truth and rapidly discovered what had happened, including myriad reports from the Italians who had escaped.