soc.history.war.world-war-ii

Phil McGregor wrote:
: Well, in the field, if an enemy soldier raises a white flag and
: "surrenders" and then, at the last moment, whips out a pistol and
: shoots the friendly soldiers coming up to take him prisoner, that's a
: war crime, too.

That is correct. However, surrendering ship is not same thing as surrendering
soldier. Flying a false flag was a standard (and accepted) naval tactic. By
contrast, a dim view is taken on those who wear enemy uniforms.

And fake surrender was, as you probably know, standard tactic of
Q-ships. Often they would even lower a "panic party" in a lifeboat to
create impression of ship being abandoned. Once enemy submarine would
get too close, convinced that the ship is harmless, Q-ship would open fire
with its concealed armament. Royal Navy employed Q-ships in both WW1
and WW2, so both Detmers and Burnett were well aware of the tactic.

Of course, Q-ships were supposed to hoist the White Ensign just before
opening fire, to honour the letter, if not the spirit, of the international
law (similarly, German raiders were also supposed to raise Kriegsmarine
ensign, and they had - as I said - specific mechanism to do it very quickly).
However, what evidence there is that they actually did this in practice?
Only the word of the British personnel themselves, and their testimony is
naturally suspect. There were usually few or no survivors from sunk German
subs.

So by your own definition, every captain of a Q-ship was a suspected war
criminal and pirate. With their "300 years of Royal Navy tradition" and all.

: Yes, I suppose that if the friendlies don't take insane precautions
: and have a dozen goys standing around him with rifles pointed at him
: so the one designated to "take his surrender" doesn't get killed by
: surprise, you *could* accuse them of "negligence" ...

Again, your analogy falls apart. From tactical viewpoint, Detmers had little
to win from opening fire under false or white flag. A few seconds of extra
time was the most he could hope to get from such ruse - not enough to offset
firepower- and other tactical advantages of SYDNEY.

>From his personal viewpoint, such tactics wouldn't be beneficial either. Even
with surprise, KORMORAN had little chance to escape any battle with SYDNEY
without crippling damage.
Even if they did, SYDNEY would be almost certain to transmit the location of
KORMORAN to everyone around, after which KORMORAN would be hunted down
without mercy. As soon as fight with SYDNEY was inevitable, Detmers knew
that he had almost no chance to get back to Germany. He would either go down
with the ship or end up in Australian POW camp. Which would be - as you said
- an effective death sentence if there was any proof that he was guilty
for a war crime.


: However, what Detmers MAY have done, if he falsely raised the flag AND
: OPENED FIRE WHILE IT WAS STILL RAISED,

...which, as I proved, would offer almost no extra advantage for KORMORAN,
and lots of personal disadvantage for Detmers. So why he would engage in such
practice?

: Treachery, in other words, can't be prepared for.

Of course it can. Entire Q-ship concept was based on treachery. Yet their
actual record was poor in WW1 and disastrous in WW2. Germans soon learned to
be prepared for "treachery".

In similar fashion, other raider vs cruiser encounters ended badly for
the raiders:

ATLANTIS was sunk by HMS DEVONSHIRE, even though ATLANTIS tried to
transmit British code (which was, unfortunately for them, outdated one).
PINGUIN was attacked by HMS CORNWALL whilst flying a Norwegian flag;
German captain hoisted a battle ensign when he realized that the game was up.
In both cases, cruisers shot up the raiders from (relatively) safe distance.

: Less obvious, but more important, IF the ship WAS the Kormoran, then
: they needed to capture her before she could be scuttled in the hope
: that they could get code books and other intelligence before it could
: be destroyed.

That is indeed a standard explanation (and quite likely one) of why Burnett
was so careless in the situation. Though, he likely did not think that the
ship was a raider, but a supply ship. Stopping to board a raider would be
insanely dangerous, regardless of what flag it was flying. Regardless, in
this case Admiralty was part guilty of negligence for not handing out clearer
procedures.