On July 28, 1943 during a mission on the Norwegian coast HNoMS MTB-345 was captured near Opsøy, Norway. On board were six Norwegian naval officers and men and one British sailor in full uniform. Exactly what the torpedo boat was doing is a bit of a mystery, some sources say they were laying mines, another source says they were conducting "a kind of guerrilla warfare against German shipping", the Germans accused them of landing spies and saboteurs, what they were really doing I have been unable to determine. For sure they were fighting the enemy who had occupied their country.

The exact details of how the torpedo boat was captured are even sketchy, again sources differ. One sites a gun battle while another claims she ran aground. What is known is that a German auxiliary ship V-5301 Seeteufel, took the Norwegian crew prisoner. Under normal circumstances the crew would have been interrogated and sent to a PoW camp where they would spend the rest of the war, but these were not normal times.

Their fate was sealed on October 18, 1942 when Adolf Hitler issued what has become known as the Commando Order, an order to execute any commando, in uniform or not, immediately after capture. The order stemmed from several events which had occurred in the weeks previous. One was during the ill-conceived and disastrous Dieppe raid and the other from a raid of Sark Island.

It was reported to Hitler that during the Dieppe assault several Germans had been taken prisoner and bound in an unusual way, with their legs bent and a noose around their necks which was attached to their feet. The effect was that if they extended their legs they would be strangled. Apparently none actually died, but they were humiliated in German eyes. There was one other detail that reached the Führer's ears.

During the Dieppe raid a German had come across a copy of of the "Handbook of Irregular Warfare", apparently this was a handbook for British Commandos. I have never seen a copy of this handbook and have only very small excerpts of its contents (if anyone can provide a copy I would very much like to read it), but since it was probably put out by the SOE (Winston's department of dirty tricks) the instructions within were undoubtedly harsh. One excerpt reads as follows: "never give the enemy a chance; the days when we could practice the rules of sportsmanship are over. For the time being every soldier must be a potential gangster" another reads; " Remember you are out to kill". It is likely that it also included directions on how to bind a prisoner in most uncomfortable ways.

Another incident, the raid on Sark Island on Oct. 3-4, 1942 in which five Germans were captured by No. 12 Commando and SOE soldiers, caused further consternation for the Führer. Four of the Germans were killed while trying to get them off the island, and all had been bound in rather unusual and humiliating ways. When the OKW heard of these incidents and reported them to Hitler, he became enraged. He ordered that all the British and Canadian prisoners captured at Dieppe be placed in chains, in turn the British and Canadians shackled an equal number of German prisoners. This continued for some time.

The British flatly denied that they had bound the Germans, which was a complete lie of course, and the Germans remained incredulous and issued the following warning on Oct. 7, 1941: "In future all British terrorists and sabotage troops and their accomplices who do not behave like soldiers but like bandits will be treated as such by the German troops and will be ruthlessly mown down wherever they appear".

The Commando order was thus issued by Hitler and it included all suspected commandos, even those who had surrendered. Hitler was quoted as saying; "Whoever performs acts of sabotage as a soldier with the idea of surrendering without a fight after the act is successfully completed does not conduct himself as an honorable warrior". This condemned untold numbers of Allied commandos (and regular soldiers) to death.

I must add here that to think this was just a an act of German brutality is to be ignorant of history and the way war is conducted. Both the British and Americans executed German agents, spies and commandos, some in the field and some after a trial, of which the outcomes were without doubt. A commando or Special Ops. agent knows before they deploy that they may not survive, this is true for all belligerents. The articles of the Geneva Conventions lay out the treatment of prisoners, however they were written by people apparently ignorant of how people react in a real shooting war. They also underestimated human nature and what truly evil people will resort to. Their benefit to the regular soldier during World War II was at least somewhat successful if you were in German hands, however if you were in Japanese hands they were completely useless (one should note that the Japanese never signed off on the conventions).

Following the Second World War only Allied nations have paid the slightest regard to them, they have never benefited a captured Allied or NATO soldier, only those of the enemy. They did not even help the German soldier who was captured and interned in the Soviet Union, millions of who died in Stalin's Gulags. A number of Allied (British and American) soldiers who were also taken to the USSR, for still unknown reasons, never came home. In the subsequent wars, Korea, Vietnam, Middle East and so many others, the enemy nations tortured and killed soldiers of NATO nations. This continues to this day, just ask any Israeli how their captured soldiers are treated. The only conclusion that can be drawn from this is that the Geneva Conventions were and continue to be a dismal and total failure. They were perhaps written by well meaning people trying to make war more civilized, completely ignorant of the fact that war is not civilized and that the only rule is to survive and win.

Returning to the men of MTB-345, they were taken to Bergen and imprisoned, Admiral Otto Schraeder either decided or was ordered to turn them over to the SD (Sicherheitsdienst) and the Gestapo. They were transferred to the Ulven concentration camp near Bergen. There they were interrogated with the usual Gestapo torture tactics. What information they divulged, if any, is unknown. As they were not commandos or intelligence agents they would not have had much to tell the Gestapo anyway. On July 30, 1942 on order of the SD commander in Norway, SS-Oberstürmbannführer Hans Blomberg, the seven men were taken just outside the camp and shot one by one, their bodies were placed in coffins and taken out to sea. Explosive charges were put into the coffins and they were thrown overboard.

After the war Dönitz was questioned about this action, at first he refused to answer any questions regarding the Commando Order, he also denied any knowledge of Norwegian sailors being shot. This was probably true, Dönitz was the head of the navy, what the SD or Gestapo did on land was not discussed with him. In fact the Commando Order, which he undoubtedly knew about, had little or no impact on naval operations at all. This was almost exclusively something that involved land forces. It is unlikely that he ever knew of this incident, the fate of seven sailors and one little MTB were not the highest priority to a man who was responsible for an entire navy. At Nürnberg in fact he was not held responsible for their deaths. Wilhelm Blomberg was later executed by the British and von Schraeder committed suicide rather than face a British tribunal, several others were given prison terms.

The crew of MTB-345, without a grave, are commemorated by a memorial outside the former concentration camp near the spot where they were executed. MTB-345 was salvaged by the Germans and commissioned as SA-7, she exploded and sank in August of 1943 off the Shetland Islands.