“From one point of view it probably matters little what exactly was Hitler’s meaning, since the only conclusion that can be reached after a study of the facts of enemy warfare on merchant shipping is that enemy action in this field is never limited by the principles which are proclaimed by enemy spokesmen, but solely by the opportunities or lack of them which exist at any given time.”
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“The effect of the German total blockade is to prohibit neutral ships from entering an enormous stretch of sea round Britain (the area extends to about 500 miles west of Ireland, and from the latitude of Bordeaux to that of the Faroe Islands), upon pain of having their ships sunk without warning and their crews killed. As a matter of fact, at least thirty-two neutral ships, exclusive of those sailing in British convoys, have been sunk by enemy action since the declaration of the ‘total blockade’.”
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“Yet, though information is lacking in very many cases, details are available to prove that, during the period under review, at least thirty-eight Allied merchant ships, exclusive of those in convoys, have been torpedoed without warning in or near the ‘total blockade’ area.
“That the Germans themselves have no exaggerated regard for the area is proved by the fact that of the thirty-eight ships referred to at least sixteen were torpedoed outside the limits of the war-zone.”
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“The sinking of the ‘City of Benares’ on the 17th September 1940 is a good example of this. The ‘City of Benares’ was an 11,000-ton liner with 191 passengers on board, including nearly 100 children. She was torpedoed without warning just outside the ‘war zone,’ with the loss of 258 lives, including 77 children. It was blowing a gale, with hail and rain squalls and a very rough sea when the torpedo struck her at about 10 p. m. In the darkness and owing to the prevailing weather conditions, at least four of the twelve boats lowered were capsized. Others were swamped and many people were washed right out of them. In one boat alone sixteen people, including 11 children, died from exposure; in another 22 died, including 15 children; in a third 21 died. The point to be emphasized is not the unusual brutality of this attack but rather that such results are inevitable when a belligerent disregards the rules of sea warfare as the Germans have done and are doing.”
“There are hundreds of similar stories, stories of voyages for days in open boats in Atlantic gales, of men in the water clinging for hours to a raft and gradually dropping off one by one, of crews being machine-gunned as they tried to lower their boats or as they drifted away in them, of seamen being blown to pieces by shells and torpedoes and bombs. The enemy must know that such things are the inevitable result of the type of warfare he has chosen to employ.” (D-641-B)
The total sinkings by U-boats during the war (1939 to 1945) amounted to 2,775 British, Allied, and Neutral ships totalling 14,572,435 gross tons (D-641-C).