the South American east coast to Natal and Recife Brazil, across the South Atlantic through Ascension Island to the British and Belgian colonies in West Africa, across the bottom of the Sahara Desert to Khartoum Sudan, and up the Nile to Egypt and Allied forces in the Middle East and beyond. This was the only way to get large-to-medium aircraft and urgent military supplies to the British Middle East Command in Egypt (for which the U.S. Ninth Air Force was providing air support) in the Allied 1943 Egypt–Libya Campaign leading up to the defeat of Rommel and securing North Africa following Operation Torch and the Tunisia Campaign in late 1943. Laconia incident On early 15 September 1942, while senior operations officer at Ascension, then-Captain Richardson was notified by the island's British liaison that had been torpedoed. Later that morning a transiting A-20 reported sighting and taking fire from two German U-boats. Two dispatched B-25 bombers found neither the submarines nor Laconia. Later that night at about 10 p.m., Richardson was asked to assist in rescue efforts by providing air cover for the en route merchant ships, the nearby Empire Haven and HMS Corinthian at Takoorida. The next day a transiting B-24D Liberator from the 343rd Bombardment Squadron was sent to investigate and found four U-boats displaying the Red Cross flag engaged in rescue operations from the sinking of Laconia. 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" Lieutenant James D. Harden of the US Army Air Forces did not respond to the messages, and turned away and notified his base of the situation. The senior officer on duty that day,