COL. PHILLIMORE: What were the actual words you used when you passed that order on to commanders?
MOEHLE: I told the commanders in so many words: We are now approaching a very delicate and difficult chapter; it is the question of the treatment of lifeboats. The Commander of the U-boat fleet issued the following radio message in September 1942—I then read the radio message of September 1942 in full. For most of those present the chapter was closed; no commander had any questions to ask. Explanations were not given unless questions were asked. In some few instances the commanders asked, “How should this order be interpreted?” Then as a means of interpretation I gave the two examples which had been related to me at the U-boat command and added, “Officially such a thing cannot be ordered; everybody has to reconcile that with his own conscience.”
COL. PHILLIMORE: Do you remember any comment being made by commanding officers after you had read the order?
MOEHLE: Yes, Sir. Several commanders, following the reading of this radio message said, without making any further comment, “That is very clear, but damned hard.”
COL. PHILLIMORE: My Lord, I have no further questions.
THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will adjourn for 10 minutes.
[A recess was taken.]
COL. PHILLIMORE: My Lord, I would now put before the Tribunal two cases where that order of the 17th of September 1942 was apparently put into effect. The first case is set out at the next document in the document book, which is D-645. My Lord, I put that document in and it becomes Exhibit GB-203. It is a report of the sinking of a steam trawler, a fishing trawler, the Noreen Mary, which was sunk by U-247 on the 5th of July 1944. The first page of the document contains an extract from the log of the U-boat. The time reference 1943 on the document is followed by an account of the firing of two torpedoes which missed, and then, at 2055 hours, the log reads:
“Surfaced. Fishing Vessels. . . .”—bearings given of three ships—“Engaged the nearest. She stops after 3 minutes.”
Then there is an account of a shot fired as the trawler lay stopped, and then, the final entry: