U-boat commander, Lieutenant Commander Werner Hartenstein, had secured permission to conduct rescue operations after discovering that the ship he had just torpedoed, RMS "Laconia", carried 1,800 Italian prisoners, a few hundred British and Polish soldiers, plus some number of civilians including women and children, British dependents from Egypt. "U-156" was crammed above and below decks with nearly two hundred survivors, including five women, and had another 200 in tow aboard four lifeboats. On 16 September at 11:25 a.m., "U-156" was spotted by an American B-24 Liberator bomber flying from a secret airbase on Ascension Island. The submarine was travelling with a Red Cross flag draped across her gun deck. Hartenstein signalled to the pilot in both Morse code and English requesting assistance. A British RAF officer also messaged the aircraft: "Laconia survivors on board, soldiers, civilians, women, children"