The laconia incident was a series of events surrounding the sinking of a british troopship in the atlantic ocean on 12 september 1942, during world war ii, and a subsequent aerial attack on german and italian submarines involved in rescue attempts. rms laconia, carrying 2,732 crew, passengers, soldiers and prisoners of war, was torpedoed and sunk by u-156, a german u-boat, off the west african coast. operating partly under the dictates of the old prize rules, the u-boat commander, korvettenkapitän werner hartenstein, immediately commenced rescue operations. u-156 broadcast her position on open radio channels to all allied powers nearby, and were joined by the crews of several other u-boats in the vicinity. after surfacing and picking up survivors, who were accommodated on the foredeck, u-156 headed on the surface under red cross banners to rendezvous with vichy french ships and transfer the survivors. en route, the u-boat was spotted by a b-24 liberator bomber of the us army air forces. the aircrew, having reported the u-boat's location, intentions and the presence of survivors, were then ordered to attack the sub. the b-24 killed dozens of laconia's survivors with bombs and strafing attacks, forcing u-156 to cast into the sea the remaining survivors that she had rescued, and to crash dive to avoid being destroyed. rescue operations were continued by other vessels. another u-boat, u-506, was also attacked by us aircraft and forced to dive. a total of 1,113 survivors were rescued; however, 1,619 were killed—mostly italian pows. the event changed the general attitude of germany's naval personnel towards rescuing stranded allied seamen. the commanders of the kriegsmarine were quickly issued the laconia order by grand admiral karl dönitz, which specifically forbade any such attempt and ushered in unrestricted submarine warfare for the remainder of the war. the b-24 pilots mistakenly reported they had sunk u-156, and were awarded medals for bravery. neither the us pilots nor their commander were punished or investigated, and the matter was quietly forgotten by the us military. during the later nuremberg trials, a prosecutor attempted to cite the laconia order as proof of war crimes by dönitz and his submariners. the ploy backfired and caused much embarrassment to the united states after the incident's full report had emerged. the laconia incident had far-reaching consequences. up until that point, it was common for u-boats to assist torpedoed survivors with food, water, simple medical care for the wounded, and a compass bearing to the nearest landmass.28 it was extremely rare for survivors to be brought on board as space on a u-boat was barely enough for its own crew. on 17 september 1942, in response to the incident, admiral karl dönitz issued an order named triton null, later known as the laconia order. in it, dönitz prohibited u-boat crews from attempting rescues; survivors were to be left in the sea. even afterwards, u-boats still occasionally provided aid for survivors. at the nuremberg trials held by the allies in 1946, dönitz was indicted for war crimes. the issuance of the laconia order was the centrepiece of the prosecution case, a decision that backfired badly. its introduction allowed the defence to recount at length the numerous instances in which german submariners acted with humanity where in similar situations the allies behaved callously. dönitz pointed out that the order itself was a direct result of this callousness and the attack on a rescue operation by us aircraft. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/laconia_incident