BdU responded at 03:45 ordering Wolf pack Eisbär, consisting of under the command of Harro Schacht, under the command of Erich Würdemann and under the command of Georg von Wilamowitz-Moellendorf, to assist Hartenstein immediately. At 06:00 Hartenstein ordered that the following message be sent on the 25m wavelength: "If any ship will assist the ship-wrecked Laconia crew, I will not attack providing I am not being attacked by ship or air forces. I picked up 193 men. 4°53 South/11°26 West – German submarine" The message was repeated twice on the international 600m wavelength. The BdU later changed the order slightly and U-506, U-507 and the Italian submarine Capellini were dispatched. In parallel U-156 was assisting and supplying the survivors in the numerous lifeboats that kept arriving or were picked up. U-506 arrived at 11:32 on 14 September 1942, followed by U-507 in the afternoon of 15 September. Heading to a rendezvous with Vichy French ships under Red Cross banners, the U-boats were attacked by a U.S. Army B-24 Liberator bomber (343d Bomb Squadron; Lieutenant James D. Harden) at 12:32 on 16 September 1942. The attack ordered by Captain Robert C. Richardson III, which killed a number of people in the lifeboats and damaged U-156, forced Hartenstein to abandon the rescue operations. A majority of survivors were later rescued by British merchant ships and two Vichy French warships, the cruiser Gloire and the sloop Annamite, out of Dakar, Africa. This event later became known as the "Laconia incident" and led BdU Admiral Karl Dönitz to issue the "Laconia order" to his U-boat commanders that stated in part "No attempt of any kind must be made at rescuing members of ships sunk ..." At the end of the war, the Laconia Order was unsuccessfully used against Admiral Dönitz in his war crime trial. The prosecution failed when Fleet Admiral Nimitz testified that in the war with Japan the United States Navy had followed the same general policy as was set forth in the German admiral's directive. U-156 received a radio message on 17 September 1942 indicating that Werner Hartenstein had become the 63rd member of the U-boat service and the 125th of the Kriegsmarine to be awarded Germany's highest military honour, the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross (). Hartenstein issued a bottle of beer to each member of the crew and held a speech honouring the achievements of everyone on board,