WAR & PEACE: Prisoners of Defense

WAR & PEACE

Into Boston Harbor last week steamed the filthy, seaworn, ketch-rigged little (61-ton) Norwegian tub Busko, first Nazi sea victim of U.S. naval might, trapped off Greenland by a U.S. patrol vessel, escorted into the harbor by the old 703-ton Coast Guard cutter Bear, once a Byrd Antarctic ship. Aboard the Busko were radio equipment, skis, dogsleds, two dogs, a Gestapo agent, 18 Norwegian sailors, a woman and a boy. What was the status of the captives? Were they prisoners of war or (since the U.S. is not in the war) prisoners of defense? Under what law could they...

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