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During a group watch of a '50s cartoon, a cat vs mouse on a cruise ship, there was a gag about the cat firing a deck gun. I'm pretty sure because that was in the gag file under "ships," especially coming out of WWII. It brought me a realization I'm a bit light on the rules of war or Geneva Convention on civilian ships, like how armed a ship can be and still be considered a civilian ship.

By Douglas Lampert (Dlampert) on Saturday, August 30, 2025 - 12:26 pm: Edit

As far as I know, the distinction is based on why the other side is targetting it. If you are targetting it because you want to kill the gun, then it's a legitimate military target. If you are targetting it to kill the civilian passengers, then it's a civilian ship and that's a war crime. If you are targetting it to stop the cargo, then it depends on the cargo.

Post WWII there was a point in some of the war crimes trials that Japanesse commerce raiders deliberately shot life-boats, which converted possibly legitimate commerce raiding into war crimes.

Note that there are rules against disproportionate attacks, you can't claim, "Oh, I totally fired that torpedo at that ship to kill a 3" deck gun it wasn't using" and expect to get away with that excuse unless someone had used that deck gun to shoot at your side or you had some other reason to consider it an imminent threat worth expending a torpedo.

By Eddie E Crutchfield (Librarian101) on Saturday, August 30, 2025 - 01:17 pm: Edit

The original Geneva Convention did not define warships, the Hague Convention of 1907 did. Four criteria:
1. Commanded by a state officer: It had to be under the command of an officer who was in the service of the state and duly commissioned by the government.
2. Crew under military discipline: The crew had to be subject to regular military discipline.
3. External markings: The ship was required to bear the external markings that distinguished warships of its nationality.
4. Government authority: It had to be placed under the direct authority, immediate control, and responsibility of the power whose flag it flew.

Apparently putting naval gun crews on a ship did not violate the rules. These are based on rules in effect in WWII, New rules were adopted in 1949. As a reminder all nations violated several of the rules in effect at the time, mostly using the idea that the other guy did it first.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, August 30, 2025 - 05:11 pm: Edit

During WW2, both sides ditched the old “cruiser rules” and went with subs attacking without warning any freighter in a war zone. There were some exceptions for neutral ships or ships going to neutral country trading partners. There was some bizarre rule that allowed allied ships to pass through Japanese territory to reach Russia. I have never understood how those worked.

By MarkSHoyle (Bolo) on Saturday, August 30, 2025 - 07:17 pm: Edit

Initially some German U-Boot Captains would bring lifeboats onto the deck to transport them to a location near shore or neutral port....
After continued air attacks, even with the POWs on the deck, that practice ceased....

By Chuck Strong (Raider) on Saturday, August 30, 2025 - 11:54 pm: Edit

I suppose the Japanese didn’t want to anger Russia and enter the war against them.

By MarkSHoyle (Bolo) on Sunday, August 31, 2025 - 09:04 am: Edit

There was a story, where the fleet heading to Pearl,
encountered a Russian Submarine and sank it....
Don't know when the Russians knew the whole truth,
initially putting it down to lose due to accident....

By Jack Bohn (Jackbohn) on Sunday, August 31, 2025 - 10:35 am: Edit

Killing civilians was right out, okay.

Taking out material of the enemy: ships, even civilian, ports, even civilian, railroads, bridges, factories, warehouses. Eventually cities.

Nominally neutral countries. It seems they could do anything short of sinking a ship (under the implicit threat of sinking it). What was the civilian ship response, in regards to arming? I think it was "Action in the North Atlantic" that had Humphrey Bogart in the Merchant Marine that had mountable smaller caliber weapons to deal with aircraft that had to get down close and personal to bring their own small-caliber weapons to bear; they had to wait til war for the above-mentioned naval gun crews.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Sunday, August 31, 2025 - 11:20 am: Edit

A quick google search retrieved this:

“ Civilian ships were armed starting in 1941 with the formation of the US Navy Armed Guard program, which began training gunners for merchant vessels in September 1941 and by January 1942 was equipping ships with guns. The process was a response to increasing losses of American merchant ships and was supported by the repeal of the Neutrality Act's prohibition against arming merchant vessels. By the time of the United States' entry into World War II, "all merchant ships were requisitioned by the U.S. Government...and fitted with armament, armor, and countermeasure equipment".

This is AI so who knows how accurate it is.

Lot of people using AI have gotten into trouble with the AI function “making stuff up” that is not actual fact.

YMMV.

By Jack Bohn (Jackbohn) on Monday, September 01, 2025 - 06:10 pm: Edit

I guess the last question is how long they took disarming the ships afterwards. I can see them turning in the ammunition (so that "eliminating the competition " is merely with aggressive discounts), but it's not like there's a need for the hardware elsewhere. On a '50s trip to Hawaii, could your cat and mouse -- I mean kids -- at least pretend to be targeting each other?

By Ryan Opel (Ryan) on Tuesday, September 02, 2025 - 11:55 pm: Edit

They were just bolted to the decks. No shipyard needed to remove them. Just some wrench turners, a cutting torch, and a crane.

You can see how they are mounted on the SS American Victory, which is a Victory Class merchant homeported in Tampa, FL.