About Lemps attack on the Athenia:
Quote:
By this point the boat’s silhouette was clearly visible. Lemp went below to
identify his vessel, referencing it to his copy of Lloyd’s Register, which was carried by every
captain. Only then did he discover that he had made a terrible error. His target was not an
auxiliary cruiser at all, but rather the passenger liner Athenia, on route to Canada with 1,103 men
women and children, including 311 Americans.
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If Lemp had bothered to check his recognition manual before he fired two torpedoes at the target, many lives could have been spared.
U-boats always tried to identify their target, if the visibility conditions allowed it. This was also important to get the targets draught since the U-boat crews had very clear instructions on how to set their torpedo depth. (for example target draught +2m early in the war)