ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Laconia incident

Okay kiddo, so a long time ago there was a ship called the Laconia that was traveling in the ocean during a war. The ship was actually carrying people who were trying to escape the war and find a safe place to go.

One day, the ship was attacked by some war planes and it was really damaged. Lots of people were hurt and the ship was sinking. Some other boats nearby saw what happened and they went to help the people on the Laconia.

But then, something kind of confusing happened. The people who were flying the war planes that attacked the Laconia actually sent out a message asking for help to save the people on the sinking ship. At first, the people on the rescue boats were really confused and didn’t know if they could trust the war planes.

But eventually, they decided to help everyone on the Laconia, including the people who were originally attacking the ship. It was a really dramatic and scary situation, but in the end, everyone worked together to save as many people as possible.