youtube: US Navy U-Boot und Schiffsbesatzungen erschießen schiffbrüchige Japaner

[Richard Aigner]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmyq2OJOVDw
gelesen habe ich ja darüber, aber es in Film, noch dazu Farbe zu sehen ist doch reichlich grauenvoll.
Gruß, Richard

[Big A]

Was soll dieser Film mit der unsäglichen Musik aussagen?

Ein Zusammenschnitt altbekannter Aufnahmen, reißerisch dargeboten und keinerlei Hinweis darauf, dass immer wieder japanische Soldaten sich der Rettung widersetzten und Retter durch verborgene Granaten töteten.
Damit ich richtig verstanden werde, ich heiße das Verhalten in keiner Weise gut, man muss es aber aus der Zeit betrachten.
Gleiches gab es auch bei allen Landkämpfen, es begann auf Guadalcanal mit den Vorfällen um die "Goettge-Patro"

Axel

[Rast]

Alles Richig!

Aber die Amis sollen sich nicht immer so als
Weltverbesserer aufspielen und mit dem Finger
auf die bösen anderen zeigen.

[Big A]

1. ist das über 75 Jahre her und nur aus der Situation heraus nachvollzieh- und erklärbar
2. da spielen und spielten sich seither ganz andere als "Weltverbesserer"  auf, deren eigene Taten selten bis gar nicht an die Öffentlichkeit drangen - weil z.B. keine freie Presse
3. wer sind "die Amis"? Das ist in etwa so aussagekräftig wie "die Krauts", "die Japse" etc

my 2 cents

Axel

P.S. den Sinn des youtube Filmchens habe ich immer noch nicht durchschaut - liegt wohl an meinem Alter

[asus1402]

...da gebe ich dir Recht!

[thommy_l]

Hallo,

Was soll dieser Film mit der unsäglichen Musik aussagen?

Zur Musik volles Einverständnis, zur zusammenstellung der Aufnahmen, na ja, sehr unzusammenhängend ... aber

1. ist das über 75 Jahre her und nur aus der Siruation heraus nachvollzieh- und erklärbar

In den Aufnahmen gibt es Szenen, in denen anscheinend Schiffbrüchige abgeschossen werden. Das ist ein Kriegsverbrechen. Nach WK1 und WK2 wurden Offiziere der unterlegenen Marine dafür hingerichtet. Mord ist doch niemals erklärbar?

2. da spielen und spielten sich seither ganz andere als "Weltverbesserer"  auf deren eigene Taten selten bis gar nicht an die Öffentlichkeit drangen - weil z.B. keine freie Presse

OK. Ist das eine Rechtfertigung dafür, dass ich vor Jahren, sagen wir mal, einen Mundraub gegangen habe? Weil A das getan hat, ist B besser?

3. wer sind "die Amis"?

Ich glaube, dass diese Begriffe hier im Forum nicht negativ gemeint sind.

Grüße
Thommy

[kalli]

Nur zu Punkt 3.
Ich glaube, dass Axels Frage sich nicht auf den Bezeichnung Amis bezieht, sondern auf ,,die". Denn genau so wenig, wie man alle Taten oder Untaten, gute oder weniger gute Eigenschaften den Deutschen, den Franzosen, den Russen, den Briten, den Japanern anrechnen kann, so sind diese doch besser konkret zuzuordnen, ihnen nachzuweisen, zu bewerten und eventuell auch jene konkret zu benennen, die diese Dinge publizieren, vertreten, verherrlichen usw.
Übrigens kenne ich Deutsche, die überhaupt nicht pünktlich sind, deren Fleiß nicht besonders ausgeprägt ist und es sollen sich sogar Kriminelle unter meinen Landsleuten befinden. Aber deshalb sind nicht alle Deutschen unpünktlich, faul oder kriminell

[thommy_l]

Hallo Kalli,

"der die das weshalb wieso warum", das erinnert mich an die Sesamstrasse. War genau so nicht gemeint.

"Ami", "Franzos", "Pole", "Öschie" (verzeih mir bitte) war und ist ganz wertfrei in der Mundart meiner Heimat gemeint. Da ist keine Abwertung darin!

Thommy

[kalli]

tut mir leid. Aber Du hast mein Anliegen nicht verstanden. Es ging nicht um die Bezeichnung. Solltest wohl öfters mal Sesamstraße sehen

[Rolfo]

http://uboat.net/articles/index.html?article=18&page=5
On November 30, 1945, a cold gray morning in Hamburg, Heinz Eck, August Hoffmann and Walter Weispfennig rose before dawn and put on their Kriegsmarine uniforms for the last time. The condemned men were marched across the Altona Prison exercise yard and down a tree-lined path to the prison firing range. Ahead of them were three posts side-by-side, all uniform in height. The prisoners were tied to the posts according to standard field regulations in such a way that after they were shot, the only visible changes in body positions would be a slight sagging at the knees and heads slumped forward. The officer in charge of the firing squad and his sergeant inspected the bindings and the latter pulled a hood over each man's head.

SS Peleus
It is impossible to know how many of the thirty-five man crew got off the ship before she was swallowed by the sea, but there could not have been many. Chief Officer Antonios Liossis was knocked unconscious and blown off the bridge into the water. Rocco Said, an off-watch greaser, was on deck when the torpedoes struck. To Said, who had been at sea since his youth, "it was clear the ship would sink immediately." He and other crewmen who were on deck at the time determined to take their chances in the ocean.6 The freighter went down so quickly that almost none of the survivors had time to don life vests or life belts. Those who jumped overboard clung to hatch covers, timbers, and any other piece of wreckage that floated. Rafts that had been stowed on deck bobbed clear as the freighter went down, and some of the survivors made for them. Chief Officer Liossis and a seaman, Dimitrios Konstantinides, swam toward a raft. While they were still in the water U-852 moved slowly among the flotsam. After the U-boat passed, Liossis and Konstantinides climbed aboard the raft.
The only officers on U-852's bridge at this time were Kapitänleutnant Eck and his first watch officer, Oberleutnant z.S. Gerhard Colditz. The other occupants consisted of two enlisted lookouts. As the U-boat cruised slowly among the debris, Eck and his crewmen on the bridge could hear whistles and shouting. They also saw lights on some of the rafts. At about this time the ship's doctor, Oberstabsarzt Walter Weispfennig, came on the bridge. His sole purpose for going topside was to see what was transpiring, and he stood behind a periscope about fifteen feet away from Eck and Colditz.
Whenever possible, U-boat captains were supposed to question survivors about the ship, its cargo and destination. Eck called down and ordered his chief engineer, Kapitänleutnant (Ing.) Hans Lenz, on deck. Because Lenz spoke English, he sent the engineer forward to the bow to question a survivor. Lenz was joined in the trek forward by the second watch officer, Lieutnant z.S. August Hoffmann.
Hoffmann had come off watch at 400 p.m., an hour before the Peleus was sighted. He had been below deck during the attack and was not scheduled to go back on watch until midnight. Hoffmann also spoke some English, but he had not been specifically ordered to accompany Lenz to the bow. Apparently he, like Weispfennig, was there to see what was going on.
As the two officers reached the bow, Eck maneuvered U-852 alongside one of the life rafts. The raft he picked was occupied by the Peleus' third officer, Agis Kephalas, a greaser named Stavros Sogias, a Russian seaman named Pierre Neuman, and a Chinese fireman whose name no one recalled. Kapitänleutnant (Ing.) Lenz beckoned the third officer to come aboard the U-boat. Lenz and Hoffmann questioned the man about the ship. They learned that she was in ballast and that she was sailing from Freetown and bound for the River Plate. Third officer Kephalas also told them that another, slower ship was following them to the same destination. With the questioning concluded, Hoffmann told the Greek officer that he and the other survivors would be picked up the next day by the British. He helped the man back onto his raft and both officers started back toward the conning tower to report what they had learned. After the Greek sailor returned to his raft, Eck ordered U-852 to proceed slowly while he listened to Lenz's report. When Lenz told him about the Greek officer's account of the approaching, slow moving freighter, Eck discounted the claim as "too much of a good thing."
At this point there were five officers on the bridge Eck, his first officer (Colditz), the second officer (Hoffmann), the chief engineer (Lenz), and the doctor (Weispfennig). The doctor was still standing away from the others and did not participate in the conversation that followed. Apparently Hoffmann also remained far enough away from the group that he could not clearly understand what the other three men were discussing.
The conversion had taken an ominous turn. Eck told Colditz and Lenz that he was concerned about the amount and size of the wreckage. He believed that the morning air patrols out of Freetown or Ascension Island would spot the wreckage and recognize it as the result of a U-boat attack. The discovery would trigger an immediate search for the U-boat, and given the number of U- boats lost during the previous six months, Eck felt his boat did not stand a chance if discovered by enemy aircraft.
His choices, however, were limited. He could leave the area and run on the surface at maximum speed until dawn, but by the time the sun rose, U-852 would still be less than 200 miles from the scene of the sinking-well within range of aircraft. In the time it took U-852 to travel about a half mile from the scene of the sinking, Eck decided that in order to protect his boat and his crew, he had to destroy all traces of the Peleus.
Eck ordered two machine guns brought up on the bridge. While the weapons were being retrieved from below, both Colditz and Lenz protested the captain's decision. Eck listened to both officers but dismissed their objections. According to Eck, it was necessary to destroy all traces of the sinking, and he justified the destruction of the wreckage as an operational necessity to protect his boat from discovery and destruction.
As the U-boat turned back toward the rafts Lenz went below, leaving four officers on the bridge Eck, Colditz, Hoffmann and Weispfennig. Both machine guns were brought up and mounted on the railing on the after part of the conning tower-one to port and one to starboard. Exactly what was said and happened next is not entirely clear. Apparently Eck made it known to the officers on the bridge that he wanted the rafts sunk. He made no mention of shooting at anyone in the water, nor did he ever give an order to kill any of the survivors. It was accepted, however, that by sinking the rafts the survivors would lose any hope for survival. Eck had chosen to use machine guns because he believed the rafts were mounted on hollow floats, and thus piercing the floats with bullets would cause the the rafts would sink. In fact, the rafts' floats were filled with buoyant material.
It was now about 800 p.m., and the night was very dark and moonless. The rafts appeared as dark shapes on the water, their lights having been extinguished by the occupants when the U-boat first approached. Eck apparently turned to Weispfennig, who was standing near the starboard machine gun, and ordered him to fire at the wreckage. The doctor complied with the order, directing his fire at a raft he estimated was about 200 yards away.
Weispfennig's gun jammed after he had fired just a few bursts, and he could not make it operate again. Hoffmann, still off watch, went to Weispfennig and cleared the jam. The second officer then took over on the gun and opened fire on the raft that had been Weispfennig's target. The doctor took no further part in the attempt to destroy the rafts, although he remained on the bridge. Despite the machine gun fire directed at it, the raft refused to sink. Eck ordered the signal light turned on in order to examine the craft to determine why it was still afloat. The examination, conducted at considerable distance and in poor light, proved inconclusive. The U-boat continued to move slowly through the wreckage, firing intermittently at the rafts. Apparently all the firing was being done from the starboard side, and at this point only Hoffmann was shooting. Weispfennig did not shoot again, and neither Eck nor Colditz ever fired.
Nor was the firing continuous. In fact there were long periods when there was no firing at all. In part the pauses were the result of poor visibility due to the dark, moonless night. The other reason for the interruptions was the ineffectiveness of the machine gun fire on the rafts. They were not sinking, despite the rounds being pumped into them. Eck's goal of eliminating surface wreckage was not being achieved.
At about this time Hoffmann suggested using the 37mm gun, reasoning that its explosive rounds would destroy the rafts. Some consideration was also given to using the 105mm deck gun, but Eck rejected both suggestions because he did not think the guns could be brought to bear at such close range. He did, however, tell Hoffmann to try the twin 20mm anti-aircraft guns.
The attempt to sink the rafts with the 20mm guns was also a failure, prompting someone to suggest placing demolition charges aboard the rafts. Eck rejected that idea because he did not want any of his crew to leave the U-boat. Instead, he ordered hand grenades brought up, and maneuvered U-852 within thirty yards of a raft.
The only person who can be identified as having thrown any grenades is Hoffmann. How many he threw at the raft, or if he threw grenades at more than one raft, is not known. It appears that two or three grenades were thrown, and that perhaps two of the rafts were targets. The grenades also proved to be useless in sinking the rafts. Throughout the grisly operation it was not Eck's intent to kill any of the survivors. That they might be hit by gunfire, and would certainly die if their rafts were destroyed, was obvious to him. But he assumed that whoever was on the rafts had jumped into the water when the shooting started. His assumption was incorrect.
Instead of diving into the sea, Chief Officer Antonios Liossis threw himself down on the floorboards of the raft and squirmed head first under a bench when the machine gun opened fire. Behind him he heard Dimitrios Kostantinidis cry out in pain as he was hit several times. The seaman collapsed on the floor of the raft and died. Later, when the U-boat made another pass and grenades were thrown, Liossis was wounded in the back and shoulder by shrapnel.
Aboard another raft were the third officer, Agis Kephalas, and two seamen. Both of the latter were killed and Kephalas was badly injured in the arm. It is unclear whether these men were killed or wounded by grenade fragments or machine gun fire. Despite his wound, Kephalas managed to roll off the raft and swim toward the boat occupied by Liossis.
Seaman Rocco Said dived over the side when the firing started and was in the water near his raft when the shooting was turned in his direction. Around him other swimmers "threw their hands up" as they were machine-gunned, and sank below the surface.