You will rescue no one and take no one with you. Have no care for the ships boats, weather conditions and the proximity of land are of no account. Care only for your own boat and strive to achieve the next success as soon as possible. We must be hard in this war. The enemy started the war in order to destroy us, therefore nothing else matters. Admiral Karl Dönitz Document-20: The sinking of the "Olivegrove"
War Order 154 was issued by Doenitz in early December 1939. In practice, however, German submarine crews continued to abide by the "custom of the sea‟ and to help shipwrecked fellow mariners where and when the occasion arose. Only one U-boat commander, Heinz-Wilhelm Eck, U-852, was convicted of war crimes for the sinking of the Greek merchantman PELEUS in 1944. Incidentally my father served aboard OLIVEGROVE in 1939 and paid off 6 months prior to her sinking but was later torpedoed and sunk on another ship in 1942 in the South Atlantic. The U-boat commander who sunk the ship gave them a course for the nearest land and wished them well. Regards Hugh