#47
Post
by Ostuf Charlemagne » 12 Apr 2004, 22:08
Well ,despite whatever may say some readers , it is a fact that the Royal Navy have a strange conception of the naval honor , from the time of the failed raid of the spanish Great Armada (1588) when for instance , Lord Howard pursued the spanish ship San Lorenzo up to the french beaches of Calais .After having extermined the spanish crew ,the british sailors launched a raid against the french civilians of Calais (who had nothing to do with this war ) and stolen them ,until the french opened fire with their cannons against the brits who runned away ...
( Source : report of Richard Thompson ,vice –commander of british ship “Margaret and John” where he stated : “ Some of our men are so crude that they do not make any difference between friends and foes .They have stolen the jewels of the frenchs as they would have done to enemies .After that we are unwanted in all europeans harbours .”)
... up to 1982 when the brits let die in a frozing sea the sailors of the argentine battleship Belgrano . In between of 1588 and 1982 ,we can mentione the following honorable deeds : the infamous “pontons” , which were cages inside the sea where were jailed ,with water up to the torso ,the frenchs sailors of Napoleon who have been captured ... this infamous torture ,largely utilized by the vietnameses against US POWs (see the movie “The Deer Hunter”) is not a communist invention but a Royal Navy one ...
At the end of WW1 ,according to the allies “diktat” ,70 german warships were supposed to rally the british naval base of Scapa Flow .The germans did it ... But inside the british naval base ,the german sailors scuttled their whole fleet . This way the german fleet sunk “ having choised her own grave “ (admiral Von Reuter ‘s dixit.)
In reprisals ,the brits would keep those german crews as POWs until ... 1920 !
During WW2 the “heroic “deed of their treasonous attack at Mers-els-Kebir plus their well evidenced war crime against the Laconia ( I’m surprised that Panzermahn didn’t bring up this story ...) lead me to think that if the III Reich had won the war ,and the Nurnberg trial has been set up for the allies ,more than one british admiral would have stood up there .
So I won’t enter the discussion about the Royal Navy because I find that their crimes are too much documented and it would be a too easy topic for us .(Even if it seems that Panzermahn and Knorr don’t have access to a full information ,there .To any newbee : Instead to start grumbling , go to the motor and try a search by the name of “Konrad Loercke” ,you will find what I’m talking about ...)
So I pass over this moot point . But ,in sake of a good discussion with our “allies” friends , let’s talk about the US Navy ( or better say ,the US Coast-Guard) for a while :
At the end of the war ,the german submarine U-234 ,under command of captain Fehler ,sailed to Japan in a secret mission ,loaded with military secrets ( in particular about infra-red technology ) ,210 tons of the most recent german waeponry ( a dismantled Me-262 was on board ), radars prototypes ,samples of Panzerfausten , new kind of explosives ,and 23 metalic boxes with 560 kilos of uranium to allows Japan to pursue the german research on nuclear weapons.
Even during day May 8th 1945 ,they received a message of Doenitz ,ordering them to carry on their mission and that his orders of surrender for the submarines where not concerning the U-234...
But two days later ,Fehler learn by the radio that Japan have broke his ties with Germany and that in Japan ,the germans residents was arrested ...Then they picked up an allied message proclaiming that all german U-boots on sea were ordered to surrender in an allies harbour ,if not they would be considered as “pirates” since their government has capitulate .
On board of U-234 ,the officers had a difficult decison to make .Some wanted to carry on the mission to Japan . (which I think they should have done “for the honor” ; two japaneses officers were on board .Feeling betrayed by the germans they committed suicide .) , some others wanted to reach a neutral country ,but at the end captain Fehler opted to surrender to the US Navy because of the uranium they were transporting .He tought that this would help the americans in the ,soon to come ,“cold war” against the russians . Now the USA were perceived as a wall against bolshevism ,just as Germany has been on the eastern front . A political fantasy that coasted the life of more than one german officer ... the following events were pretty sad and demostrated how much Fehler has been wrong :
By May 14th 1945 the war was over for the U-234 which surrended to the US detroyer SUTTON (DE771) . The german crew and officers were treated fairly by the american sailors of the Sutton . But by May 19th they were transferred to the US Coast-Guard ship “Argo”. There a coasty beated Fehler by a butstroke to the jaw because Fehler didn’t smiled to him . It was only the beginning of mistreatments . After the war ,Fehler will says that he and his men were treated “like animals “ by the Coast-Guards of the “Argo”) ... when the CG ship reached Portsmouth and Fehler and the german officers was about to leave the ship ,captain Charles Winslow , commander of the “Argo”, yelled to them : “ Out of my boat ,you nazis gangsters !”
( It seems that Winslow has this attitude because of the presence of journalists in the harbour’s docks .He wanted ,maybe ,to see his “historical” words in the next day press...Personnally I think that the Coast-Guards – at last the ones of the “Argo” – where uneasies about their un -warrior roles . Few Coast-guards ships have seen real action during the war ,and like many cushies in many armies ,they needed to bragg about their “valour”. In this case against defenseless POWs .)
The german officers and crew of the U-234 were jailed at the prison of Boston ( Charles street.) There Fehler will earch the endless awls of somebody repeatdly beated .He learned later that it was captain Fritz Stienhoff ,commander of U-873 ,who was many time tortured by US guards . Scared and desmoralized ,Fehler tried to committ suicide ,he broke his glasses and cutted his veins . Brehme ,former medic of U-873, asked the US guards for a blood transfusion of emergency .This operation was delayed the most by the prison’authorities ,but at the end ,Fehler was saved ,thanks to the first aid of german medic Brehme .
After the war ,in a declaration in 2001 , Fehler will says : “What a difference with the gentlemanly fashion we had treated our POWs aboard the “Atlantis”) - Fehler has served on the Atlantis before on the U-234 - he also declared that he had committed a mistake in surrending to americans and that if he had to do it again ,he would go to Japan or to a neutral country ... Enough said .
Now I guess that most readers ,starting with our friend Thompson , will try to argue that according to retroactive post-war“rule of war”number xxx ,parragraph bla-bla-bla- those deeds was technically no war crime .Or they will try to dismiss it as an “incident” ... They will say :“But they weren’t killed .They survived ,don’t they ? ”
Indeed . Just like many jews survived Auschwitz .
They will cry about how evils was the nazis ,and they will end teaching us lessons of democracy ,human rights , and how nice were the allies , because they have the self-proclaimed moral right to do it . And because ,as said our Lord ( and that comes handy in this Easter time ) they always look at the straw in the eyes of the others ones ,and are experts to forget the trunk in their own eye .
But Thompson knows that I am generally overdocumented and that I always keep some ammo in reserve .(Long time that I wasn’t desafying you in duel ,Thompson ...)
En garde ! by the way ,before you ask ,my sources about Fehler and the mistreatments are double :
book “ Germany’s last mission to Japan ,the failed voyage of the U-234 “ by J. Mark Scalia - a former US seal and expert in naval themes - published by the Naval Institute Press , Annapolis ,USA .
and the declarations of captain Fehler to the french historical magazine “Aventures de l’Histoire” number 4 ,April 2001 , published monthly by editions Didro .
