Beaufighter vs ship Embla, April 1944

[Laurent Rizzotti]

RAF Beaufighters attacked twice the ship Embla off Southern France in April 1944, both times suffering one loss.

On 6 April 1944 the Beaufighter LZ488 of 272 Sqn was lost with its crew (Sqn Ldr René Jean Ghislain Demoulin (pilot, Belgian) and Flt Sgt Samuel Barker) in an attack in which the Embla was damaged.

On 19 April 1944 12 Beaufighter found again the Embla south of Aigues-Mortes and this time sank her with gunfire and torpedoes, but the Beaufighter NE371 of 39 Sqn crashed at sea, both crew, Flt Sgt Arthur Leslie Hewitt (pilot) and Sgt John Frankland Garnett, being killed.

The strange part of the story is that all my sources agree that the Embla was a Swedish ship hired by the British Red Cross to bring parcels from occupied France to North Africa for German POWs !!!

Losing two aircraft and crews in attacks against an unarmed Red Cross ship seems strange to me, so I wonder if this part of the story is true. Can anyone confirm that the Embla was a Red Cross ship ? If this is the case, I guess that there should be some trace of it, either the Red Cross, the German or the Swedish probably having complained about the attacks.

Thanks in advance

Laurent

[Guy JULIEN]

Bonjour Laurent,
Yes I can, Embla was a red Cross Ship correctly indentified as neutral .
Some days later the same Beaufighter units severly damaged a two other ships Chasseral and Chistiana in the same area, both were operated by CICR.
In this time odrers were very simple "Sink at sight"
Guy

[Laurent Rizzotti]

Merci Guy

Even if Beaufighter were ordered to sink everything found, they should have been warned of the presence of Red Cross ships in the area. At least in theory, even if they apparently attacked them four times in some weeks.

There was probably diplomatic protest about these attacks, but I wonder if these go down to the Beaufighter Wing or squadrons.

And I still wonder what is the cause of the loss of both Beaufighter. They were certainly not shot down by Red Cross gunners !!

Bonne journée

[Leendert]

Laurent,

In google.books I found the "Report of the International Committee of the Red Cross on its activities during the Second World War, Sept. 1, 1939- June 30, 1947".

It says that after the Embla incident "the British government requested that, as an additional precaution, ICRC vessels should give their position by wireless to permit their identification etc..."
This meant the cooperation of the Germans as well.

If the measure was additional, then whatever neutrality markings of the ship had not been sufficient enough?

The report does say that the ICRC "notified the Powers of these violations", also referring to the attack on the vessel Cristina on 6 May 1944.

Regards,

Leendert

[Darius]

Hello friends,

here´s info from the german side:
http://warsailors.com/forum/read.php...,2092#msg-2092
of the sinking.

Greetings

Darius

[Laurent Rizzotti]

Leendert and Darius, thanks for these interesting pieces of information