It has been alleged that the RAF pilots on this mission were also told to machine gun survivors in the water.

https://www.thevintagenews.com/2016/01/20/wwii-nearly-39-years-parts-skeletons-washed-ashore-ss-cap-arcona-carrying-around-5500-concentration-camp-inmates/



Dirk

Dirk,

did all the research, only on the "internet" nordmann...
But too late to comment
Give now the links that I found and will tomorrow elaborate about the details...
Many seem to exonerate the British...and yes the Russians with the Gusloff weren't no better...
One article say that the British files were already opened in 1972? if I recall it well...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Cap_Arcona
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/long_reads/why-the-raf-destroyed-a-ship-with-4500-concentration-camp-prisoners-on-board-a7702666.html
https://www.feldgrau.com/WW2-Germany-Cap-Arcona-Cruise-Liner-Sinking
https://b-29s-over-korea.com/Cap-Arcona-Maritime-Tragedy/Cap-Arcona-Maritime-Tragedy.html
From the last entry:
"On April 26, 1945, the Cap Arcona was loaded with prisoners from the Neuengamme oncentration camp near Hamburg and was brought into the Bay of Lübeck along with two smaller ships, Athen and Thielbek. During these days, around 140 French-speaking, West European prisoners were transferred from the Thielbek to the Magdalena for transportation to hospitals in Sweden. This rescue operation was actioned by utilising information from British Intelligence, indicating their knowledge of the deportees on board."

"This rescue operation was actioned by utilising information from British Intelligence, indicating their knowledge of the deportees on board."

Kind regards from Paul.

Dirk,

from all my sources that I mentioned I stay a bit sceptical...and as nordmann said, the "internet" isn't perhaps not th best sort to do in depth research from original sources...
sceptical:
for instance the "Independent" article
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/long_reads/why-the-raf-destroyed-a-ship-with-4500-concentration-camp-prisoners-on-board-a7702666.html

"In turn, this has led to a number of conspiracy theories about the sinking. One such rumour claimed that important British records related to the incident had been sealed until 2045. In fact, all of the records were publicly released in 1972 after the Public Records Act 1967 reduced the amount of time they were to be kept secret – and I have spent a great deal of time researching them."

"Daniel Long is a PhD candidate at the School of Art and Humanities at Nottingham Trent University. This article originally appeared in The Conversation (theconversation.com)"
Not an historian, candidate at the school of Art and Humanities...
And he seems rather "forgiving" for the British...
And where are his sources from the public records from 1972?

Very difficult to find out what happened in my opinion...perhaps a lack of coordination as Daniel Long says...perhaps also lack of too much checking as collateral damage was a usual factor in those days...perhaps seeking to kill the Germans without consideration for collateral damage...
 
Perhaps Feldgrau has the best summarry as it only gives the facts without opinion or comments (Feldgrau: one would think a biased site, but up to my 16 years consultation not found a bias...)

Kind regards from Paul.

PaulRyckier wrote:

"Daniel Long is a PhD candidate at the School of Art and Humanities at Nottingham Trent University. This article originally appeared in The Conversation (theconversation.com)"
Not an historian, candidate at the school of Art and Humanities...
And he seems rather "forgiving" for the British...
And where are his sources from the public records from 1972?

Very difficult to find out what happened in my opinion...perhaps a lack of coordination as Daniel Long says...perhaps also lack of too much checking as collateral damage was a usual factor in those days...perhaps seeking to kill the Germans without consideration for collateral damage...

Agreed Paul. The excuse given by Daniel Long that the British, racing to beat the Soviets to Lübeck, combined with the ‘fog of war’ somehow resulted in the sinking of the Cap Arcona simply doesn’t wash. On the other hand, the Nick Knight article posted by Dirk is equally dubious in its main allegation that an RAF pilot Allan Wyse admitted not only to shooting at people in the water but having been ordered to do so. This seems a quite extraordinary claim to make. As you say neither the Long article nor the Knight article come with any references. In the meantime, therefore, I’ll keep an open mind on both narratives. Just to add that the following webpage gives more info on Allan Wyse:

http://aircrewremembered.com/wyse-callander.html

It’s not particularly academic either as, for example, it writes ‘Kiev’ when I think it means Kiel. And needless to say neither does it come with any references.

P.S. The 74th anniversary this week of the sinking of the Cap Arcona (originally a Hamburg-Buenos Aires ocean liner) coincides almost to the day with the 37th anniversary of another controversial British maritime sinking which was that of the ARA General Belgrano during the Falklands War. The former was sunk on 3rd May 1945 while the latter was sunk on the 2nd May 1982. It’s strange to think that the Falklands War now sits equidistant in time between the end of the Second World War and the present.

Vizzer wrote:

P.S. The 74th anniversary this week of the sinking of the Cap Arcona (originally a Hamburg-Buenos Aires ocean liner) coincides almost to the day with the 37th anniversary of another controversial British maritime sinking which was that of the ARA General Belgrano during the Falklands War. The former was sunk on 3rd May 1945 while the latter was sunk on the 2nd May 1982. It’s strange to think that the Falklands War now sits equidistant in time between the end of the Second World War and the present.

In regard of which it is perhaps also worth mentioning that ARA General Belgrano was, before she was sold to Argentina in 1951, originally the USS Phoenix. Launched in 1938 she had a distinguished WW2 service history which included surviving, unscathed, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour. Who, in the 1940s, would have guessed that she'd eventually be sunk, four decades later, by a British nuclear-powered submarine? 

Here's the Phoenix/Belgrano on the morning of 7 December 1941, with the battleships USS West Virginia and USS Arizona burning in the background:

Vizzer, thank you for the reply and the additional information. And yes, "honest" history and sources are that difficult to find, even academic ones. Ref the German Historikerstreit and the turmoil around Goughenheim's "Aristote au Mont Saint Michel"...and MM thanks for the story about the Belgrano.

Kind regards to both from Paul.