Operation Teardrop
Wikimedia CommonsA life raft carries survivors from U-546 in the midst of a group of U.S. Navy destroyer escorts.
Many of Adolf Hitler’s grand plans were so absurdly ambitious that one could simply disregard them without a second thought. But when Hitler threatened to attack New York and sent U-boats capable of carrying long-range rockets uncomfortably close to the East Coast, the U.S. military had to take him seriously.
Thus was born Operation Teardrop, the U.S. Navy’s campaign to hunt down German boats in the North Atlantic. And while that campaign went largely according to plan — and international law — one incident got very much out of hand.
Wikimedia CommonsPaul Just, commander of U-546, comes aboard USS Bogue soon after the sinking of his craft.
On April 24, 1945, the German U-boat U-546 sank the American USS Frederick C. Davis, killing 126 of its 192 crewmen, and causing several other American ships to give chase.
After about ten hours, the USS Flaherty sank U-546 and took its 32 survivors, including commander Paul Just, as prisoners aboard the USS Bogue.
Perhaps it was because U-546 had just killed 126 Americans, and almost certainly it was because the Americans were under extraordinary pressure to ferret out any German boats that posed a threat to the homeland, but the Americans did not treat their new prisoners as they should have.
Wikimedia CommonsThe USS Bogue in 1945.
Of the 32 survivors, 25 were sent to prisoner of war camps — as they all should have been — while eight were pulled out for interrogation about threats to American soil.
Those eight men were repeatedly beaten, held in solitary confinement, subjected to exhaustive physical strain, and otherwise tortured over the course of two weeks, until the official acceptance of Germany’s surrender on May 8.
Then, even after the war ended, the men were transferred to Fort Hunt, Virginia, where they were once again subjected to harsh treatment before finally being released on May 12.
