Peleus carried a mixed crew from Freetown toward Buenos Aires when U-852 torpedoed her in March 1944. Although the submarine was supposedly preserving the secrecy of its passage to the Indian Ocean, its commander chose to attack a small merchant ship and created the evidence he later tried to erase. After interrogating two men and returning them to a raft, the crew spent roughly five hours firing guns and small arms and throwing grenades through the debris field. Three surviving crewmen were eventually rescued by a Portuguese vessel, taken to Angola, and able to report the crime to British naval authorities. U-852's capture off Somalia gave prosecutors access to the submarine and its surviving crew. Five men were tried in 1945, making the episode an important case in the legal history of submarine warfare and command responsibility.
Chapter · 1:00:01-1:04:20
The Peleus massacre and the U-852 war-crimes trial
After U-852 sank the Greek merchant ship Peleus, its commander ordered attacks on wreckage, rafts, and survivors in an attempt to preserve secrecy.