On 4 May 1940, in response to Germany's intensive
unrestricted submarine warfare, during the
Battle of the Atlantic and
its invasion of Denmark and Norway, the
Royal Navy conducted its own unrestricted submarine campaign. The
Admiralty announced that all vessels in the
Skagerrak, were to be sunk on sight without warning. This was contrary to the terms of the
Second London Naval Treaty.
[36][37]
In July 1941, the submarine
HMS Torbay (under the command of
Anthony Miers) was based in the
Mediterranean where it sank several German ships. On two occasions, once off the coast of
Alexandria,
Egypt, and the other off the coast of
Crete, the crew attacked and killed dozens of shipwrecked German sailors and troops. None of the shipwrecked survivors posed a major threat to
Torbay's crew. Miers made no attempt to hide his actions, and reported them in his official logs. He received a strongly worded reprimand from his superiors following the first incident. Mier's actions violated the Hague Convention of 1907, which banned the killing of shipwreck survivors under any circumstances.
[38][39]
During
Operation Overlord, British
line of communication troops conducted small-scale looting in
Bayeux and
Caen in France, following their liberation, in violation of the
Hague Conventions.
[40] Looting, rape, and prisoner execution was committed by British soldiers in a smaller scale than other armies throughout the war.
[41] On 23 May 1945, British troops in
Schleswig-Holstein were alleged to have plundered
Glücksburg castle, stealing jewellery, and desecrating 38 coffins from the castle's mausoleum.
[42]
The "
London Cage", a
MI19 prisoner of war facility in the UK during and immediately after the war, was subject to allegations of
torture.
[43] The
Bad Nenndorf interrogation centre in occupied Germany, managed by the
Combined Services Detailed Interrogation Centre, was the subject of an official inquiry in 1947, which found that there was "mental and physical torture during the interrogations" and that "personal property of the prisoners were stolen".
[44]
The Italian statistics record eight
rapes and nineteen attempted rape by British soldiers in Italy between September 1943 and December 1945. Various sources, including the
Special Investigation Branch as well as evidences from Belgian reporters, said that rape and
sexual harassment by British troops occurred frequently following the
invasion of Sicily in 1943.
[45] In Germany, rapes of local women were committed by British and Canadian troops.
[citation needed] Even elderly women were targeted.
[citation needed] Though the
Royal Military Police tended to turn a blind eye towards abuse of German prisoners and civilians, rape was a major issue for them. Some officers, however, treated the behaviour of their men with leniency. Many rapes were committed under the effects of alcohol or post-traumatic stress,
[citation needed] but there were cases of premeditated attacks,
[citation needed] like the assault on three German women in the town of Neustadt am Rübenberge or the attempted gang-rape of two local girls at gunpoint in the village of Oyle, near
Nienburg, which ended in the death of one of the women when, whether intentionally or not, one of the soldiers discharged his gun, hitting her in the neck.
[46] There were also reports of "sexual assault and indecency" committed by British soldiers against children in
Belgium and the
Netherlands, when a number of men were convicted of these crimes while fraternizing with Dutch and Belgian families during the winter of 1944–1945.
[46]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied...United_Kingdom