In late 1942, a German U-boat sank the British troopship Laconia carrying 1,800 Italian POWs guarded by 103 Free Poles, 268 British military personnel, and a number of civilians off the coast of West Africa.

Then realising who the passengers were, the U-boat started rescue operations while flying the Red Cross flag.

A U.S. Army Air Corps bomber flying out of a secret South Atlantic airbase on Ascension Island attacked the U-boat. The U-boat then abandoned the rescue effort and left the survivors to drift to Africa.

Over half the survivors died. This incident led to German Admiral Dönitz to issue the Triton Null signal on 17 September 1942, which came to be known as the "Laconia Order"; the signal forbade submarine commanders from rescuing survivors from torpedoed ships.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laconia_incident

I watched the TV Film "The Sinking of the Laconia" & found it very interesting.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sinking_of_the_Laconia

In my opinion the American bombers had no right to attack submarines that were assisting & rescuing civilians & the bombing could be classed as a war crime.

Alas once Total War was declared no mercy would necessarily be shown by either side to other combatants.
A number of hospital ships had been sunk by U-Boats whilst clearly displaying their Red Cross markings as per the Articles of War.
So in some ways my sympathies can lie with the bomber crew for taking their action based on the limited knowledge they would have had.
Unfortunately warfare will never be clean and clear-cut and these sort of tragedies will occur even during humanitarian actions...

According to Wikipedia (cited by OP):

Quote:

Or as Kurt Vonnegut said, "So it goes".

Admiral Dönitz was convicted of waging unrestricted submarine warfare against unarmed neutral shipping by ordering all ships in designated areas in international waters to be sunk without warning.

He was sentenced to 10 years prison.

Would it make you happier if he had been executed?

I know exactly what you mean.  You hate Americans.

I have never run across an Australian or New Zealander that has the slightest gratitude that people like my father saved you from the Japanese.

It's so hard to keep up.

Which race are you that I have offended?

Moron, idiot or dolt?

Take it easy chaps. These things happen in wartime. This is the danger of revisionist history & looking at things with the benefit of hindsight.

They say that history is written by the victors. If the Axis powers had won WWII a lot of Allied military commanders & politicians would have been executed as war criminals, probably without a fair trial.