Unconditional sub warfare: a war crime?

[Richard III]

Saw Das Boot last night (again).

Thinking...

With all the talk of war crimes in the OT and History forums, here's a ballbreaker of a question:

Is unconditional submarine warfare a war crime?

I will let any future posters recap the fascinating history involved in this, since I'm sure some of you know it well.

 

[Flatlander Fox]

No, just as shooting at someone approaching your lines at night is not a war crime. It's war.

Many skippers TRIED not to shoot at civilian boats, but you know how that worked out...

 

[stalin006]

is not a war crime, in reallity no sub commander is hoping to sink a ship full of children,they hope to destroy and kill enemy soldiers or destroy ammo which could kill his family or friends.

 

[Hitro]

That's a good question.

It is as much a war crime as bombing enemy factories or their railroads. It all has the same goal, which is to disrupt the enemy's supply lines and to weaken their economy in general.

Is that a war cime?

I guess most would say no, I personally am quite undecided here. After all it always involves the deliberate targeting of civilians, and calling it "colletral damage" or even "human shields" is in this case clearly apologetic. But on the other hand it would be completely idiotic from a strategical point of view to let your enemy produce and transport more weaponry without disruption.
It's an inevitable result of war, which says alot about war.

 

[stalin006]

i think a real war crime would be to take a village, rounding everyone, puting them on a line, executing them and putting them in mass graves, even though the enemy knows they are not a real threat

 

[Alcibiaties of Athenae]

The answer is YES.

HOWEVER, there is more.

Before the first world war, and again before the second, UNRESTRICTED Submarine warfare was outlawed.

A Submaine had to stop a ship, identify it carried war cargo, and let the ship's crew evaculate the ship, and then report the postion withen 48 hours after sinking it.

Germany did this in 1914, but British captains immediatly broke the agreement, and radioed any and all sub sightings.
The Germans responded with unrestricted submarine warfare.
This was again in place in WWII, this time GERMANY broke the agreement, on the war's FIRST day the SS Atehnia was sunk without warning and with heavy loss of life, by U-30.
The Germans tried to cover this up, but it came up at Nuremberg:
http://uboat.net/history/athenia.htm

The US Navy conducted unrestricted warfare from day one, the feeling was that since Japan had never signed the Geneva convention or Hague convention, it was alright to fire away.

 

[stalin006]

Originally posted by Alcibiaties of Athenae
The answer is YES.

HOWEVER, there is more.

Before the first world war, and again before the second, UNRESTRICTED Submarine warfare was outlawed.

A Submaine had to stop a ship, identify it carried war cargo, and let the ship's crew evaculate the ship, and then report the postion withen 48 hours after sinking it.

if subs had to do all that it would be horribly unefficient! we dont make smart bombs that say i am about to blow up.

war itself is a crime against humanity

 

[Rodgers]

I think the greater crime under such circumstances (thinking of Battle of the Atlantic more than anything) is the treatment of the Merchant Seamen by the Allies, especially Britain - they KNEW when boarding (voluntarily) that there was a very good chance of them being sunk on their way across the Atlantic but they went ahwead anyway, either out of a sense of duty or (perhaps less likely after the war had been going for a while) economic necessity.

In response to a Merchant Seaman drowning following a sinking, the British govt stopped their wages the day their ship went down, paid no war pension to their widows and issued no campaign medal at the end of the war. Even worse, in the mid 80's the USSR issued campaign medals to those Brits who had served on merchant navy vessels running the Arctic Convoys - those veterans were told by the Home Office that they were not allowed to wear those medals (I think they meant at Remembrance Day parades etc).

Essentially those seamen were performing a "military" function - keeping a nation supplied with the necessary war materials to contine the struggle against the Germans. Therefore, sinking their ships is not a "war crime", however, I think they should have been given the same recognition and benefits as Royal Navy personnel.

 

[lord_byron_nz]

An interesting question and one that has to be answered with a number of things considered. Is disrupting such shipping a necessary component for victory? Surely this can only be justified in extreme situations, such as WW2. What kind of impact will such tactics have? If it merely serves as nusaince value, why bother! Are there any other options? Blokades, maybe?

Gievn these considerations it seems unlikely that any such action could ever be justified. But funny things happen in war and what seemed taboo beforehand suddenly seems neccesary when faced with certain scenarios. A lot of things happen in war that could fall into the "grey area" between traditional warfare and war crimes.

However, I think a fundmental component of war crimes is delibeate targeting of civilians with little or no tactical reasoning (Civilian massacres, torture of POWs etc.). Given this, I have to say that no, this is not a War Crimes.

 

[Panda]

I agree Rodgers. Having people risking, and in some cases, loosing their lives, and then showing neither respect nor recognition to them is disgraceful.

 

[G-Man]

I think it is a war crime. A submarine who shoots at anything it sees is no different then a terrorist who starts shooting random pedestrians. Sure he might hit a soldier who passed by, but by then the street will be a blood bath.
Unconditional submarine warfare means that the subs don't care if the target they shoot at is civilian or military and that for these subs civilians are legitimate targets.
As to the captains that had restrictions from doing it some of you talked about - it means that what they're doing is no longer an unconditional warfare and therefore is irrelevant for this debate.

 

[KoRnEa]

A submarine who shoots at anything it sees is no different then a terrorist who starts shooting random pedestrians. Sure he might hit a soldier who passed by, but by then the street will be a blood bath.

i don't think this is a good analogy.. when a body of water is declared a war zone, passenger/commercial ships would stop traveling there.. if a street is annouced to house a terrorist, most likey no civilian pedestrian will be there..

 

[G-Man]

No, but we're talking about something much larger than the scene of action itself. The side who uses such a warfare could declare the sea to be a war zone, and ships won't stop sailing, just like if terrorists would declare war on a country it wouldn't mean the people in that country will all stay home.

 

[Case]

Rodgers, I couldn't agree more.

My Grandfather was in the Australian merchant marine in WW2 and he got treated like sh*t by the government and the companies who ran the ships. Becuase they didn't care about the merchant mariners, they allowed lax safety standards on their ships, with the end result that he contracted lung cancer from the asbestos insulation used all over merchant ships during the war (despite the Navy and shipping companies knowing that it was dangerous at the time).

 

[Bifrost]

I think it is a war crime

Agree!
Despite its senseless, war has its laws, and violation of these rules should be punished. Using nuclear weapons is considered a violation of certain "war code", then why executing peaceful people is not a war crime?

..But actually, war is a crime...