crimes'. According to the accounts, on two separate occasions Miers ordered the machine-gunning of several shipwrecked German soldiers in rafts who had jumped overboard when their vessels were sunk by the Torbay. These events were witnessed and reported by acting First Lieutenant Paul Chapman who reported "everything and everybody was destroyed by one sort of gunfire or another". Miers also made no attempt to conceal his actions, his patrol log recording: "Submarine cast off, and with the Lewis gun accounted for the soldiers in the rubber raft to prevent them from regaining their ship..." When informed of Miers' actions, Flag Officer Submarines, Admiral Max Horton wrote to the Admiralty about the possibility of German reprisals: "As far as I am aware, the enemy has not made a habit of firing on personnel in the water or on rafts even when such personnel were members of the fighting services; since the incidents referred to in Torbay's report, he may feel justified in doing so." The Admiralty then sent a strongly worded letter to Miers advising him not to repeat the practices of his last patrol. According to historian Alfred-Maurice de Zayas in his 1979 work The Wehrmacht War Crimes Bureau, 1939–1945, the incident was one of several instances of the Royal Navy sinking Greek ships believed to be transporting German soldiers and then firing on survivors in the water or in lifeboats. All reports of such incidents were investigated by the Wehrmacht War Crimes Bureau, which collected depositions from surviving German and Greek witnesses supporting Kennedy's claims regarding the incident. By now, Miers had carried out nine successful patrols in HMS Torbay in the Mediterranean theatre, had received the Distinguished Service Order and Bar, and had been promoted to commander in December 1941. His tenth patrol in HMS Torbay in March 1942 saw the incident which earned him the VC. Whilst on patrol in Torbay off the Greek coast on the 4 March 1942, Miers sighted a northbound convoy of four troopships entering the South Corfu Channel and, since they had been too far distant for him to attack initially, he decided to follow in the hope of catching them in Corfu harbour. During the night 4/5 March, Torbay approached undetected up the channel and remained on the surface charging her battery. The convoy passed straight through the channel but on the morning of the 5 March, in glassy sea conditions,