Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
MV Wilhelm Gustloff was a German military transport ship which was sunk on 30 January 1945 by Soviet submarine S-13 in the Baltic Sea while evacuating civilians and military personnel from East Prussia and the German-occupied Baltic states, and German military personnel from Gotenhafen , as the Red Army advanced.
The wartime sinking of the German Wilhelm Gustloff in January 1945 in World War II by a Soviet Navy submarine, with an estimated loss of about 9,400 people, remains the deadliest isolated maritime disaster ever, excluding such events as the destruction of entire fleets like the 1274 and 1281 storms that are said to have devastated Kublai Khan's ...
(Note – Photo is from World War I when Erinpura was a hospital ship.) 799 Military 1941 Italy: Zara – On 29 March, in the Battle of Cape Matapan, the Italian cruiser was torpedoed, shelled and sunk by British naval forces. Of 1,086 crew, 799 were killed. 799 Navy 1942 Romania
9,343 [2] Wilhelm Gustloff: Cruise ship converted into a military transport serving as evacuation ship Germany: 30 January 1945: S-13 Soviet Union: 6,500 [3] Goya: Freighter converted into a troop transport serving as evacuation ship Germany: 16 April 1945: L-3 Soviet Union: 5,620 [4] Junyō Maru: Prisoner transport Japan: 18 September 1944 ...
The sinking of Wilhelm Gustloff, General von Steuben and Goya was a demonstration of the deadly potential of submarine warfare. [22] It is important to stress how despite being often erroneously described as noncombatant units, the ships actually possessed defensive anti-aircraft weapons and also carried military personnel (in addition to ...
Doenitz asserted that the operation was to evacuate as many lives as possible away from the already-begun Soviet reprisals. Ships of all kinds took part in this massive rescue operation, which ceased in May 1945 as the war ended. At 1230 hours on 30 January 1945, Wilhelm Gustloff left Gotenhafen for Kiel. By 1500 hours she had reached the open sea.
On 30 January Wilhelm Gustloff, Hansa, and the whaling factory ship Walter Rau left the harbor at Gotenhafen in occupied Poland, bound for Kiel. Hansa was forced to return to port with mechanical trouble, but the Gustloff , overcrowded with more than 10,000 civilians and military personnel aboard, continued.
She was launched on 25 April 1939 and commissioned on 31 July 1941 in the Baltic Fleet, [1] under the command of Captain Pyotr Malanchenko . [2] The submarine is best known for the 1945 sinking of Wilhelm Gustloff, a German military transport ship/converted cruise ship. With a career total of 44,701 GRT (gross register tonnage) sunk or damaged ...