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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.
Wilhelm Gustloff – The German militarized KdF flagship sank after being hit by three torpedoes fired by the Soviet submarine S-13 on 30 January in the Baltic. The official death toll is 5,348, but it is estimated that up to 9,343 were killed, making it possibly the worst single-ship loss of life in history and the worst maritime ship disaster ...
Before sinking Wilhelm Gustloff, Marinesko was facing a court martial for drunkenness. Four torpedoes were prepared and each had one nickname: 'For Motherland', 'For Leningrad', 'For the Soviet People', and 'For Stalin'. The first three were launched successfully and struck the port side of the ship. After being struck, the ship listed rapidly ...
Heavy casualties occurred when submarines sank large passenger ships converted into military transports, such as the Wilhelm Gustloff, that were overloaded with soldiers, prisoners, or refugees. While submarines were invented centuries ago, development of self-propelled torpedoes during the latter half of the 19th century dramatically increased ...
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 ...
Under the command of Marinesko, then 32, on 30 January 1945, at Stolpe Bank off the Pomeranian coast, S-13 sank the 25,484-ton German armed transport ship Wilhelm Gustloff under Kriegsmarine ensign, overfilled with civilians and military personnel, with three torpedoes. Recent calculations estimate more than 9,000 people were killed, the worst ...
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 ...
1945, January 30 – Soviet submarine S-13 sinks the German ship Wilhelm Gustloff, with older and cautious estimates of 6,000 but more recent estimates of more than 9,000 casualties. 1945, February 6 – Royal Navy submarine Venturer becomes the only submarine to sink another submarine while they were both submerged when she sinks U-864 off Norway.