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 (Gdynia), as the Red Army advanced. By one estimate, 9,400 people died, making it the largest loss of life in a single ship sinking in history.
The Kriegsmarine was the navy of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It superseded the Imperial German Navy of the German Empire (1871–1918) and the inter-war Reichsmarine (1919–1935) of the Weimar Republic. The Kriegsmarine was one of three official branches, along with the Heer and the Luftwaffe, of the Wehrmacht, the German armed forces from 1935 to 1945.
SS General von Steuben was a German passenger liner and later an armed transport ship of the German Navy that was sunk in the Baltic Sea during World War II. She was launched in 1923 as München, renamed General von Steuben in 1930, and renamed Steuben in 1938.
S-13 was an S-class submarine of the Soviet Navy. Her keel was laid down by Krasnoye Sormovo in Gorky on 19 October 1938. She was launched on 25 April 1939 and commissioned on 31 July 1941 in the Baltic Fleet, under the command of Captain Pyotr Malanchenko. 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 sunk or damaged, she is the highest-scoring Soviet submarine in history.
USS Grayback (SS-208), a Tambor-class submarine, was the first ship of the United States Navy to be named for the lake herring, Coregonus artedi. She ranked 20th among all U.S. submarines in total tonnage sunk during World War II, with 63,835 tons, and 24th in number of ships sunk, with 14. She was sunk near Okinawa on 27 February 1944. Her wreck was discovered in June 2019.
Alexander Ivanovich Marinesko was a Soviet career naval officer. During the last year of World War II, he became known as the captain of the submarine S-13, which sank the German military transport ship Wilhelm Gustloff in the Baltic Sea in January 1945. Passengers included civilians and women and children being evacuated from East Prussia, in addition to military and related personnel. More than 9,300 of the more than 10,000 passengers and crew died.
This is a timeline for the Battle of the Atlantic (1939–1945) in World War II.
The Baltic Sea campaigns were conducted by Axis and Allied naval forces in the Baltic Sea, the Gulf of Bothnia, the Gulf of Finland and the connected lakes Ladoga and Onega on the Eastern Front of World War II. After early fighting between Polish and German forces, the main combatants were the Kriegsmarine and the Soviet Navy, with Finland supporting the Germans until 1944 and the Soviets thereafter. The Swedish Navy and merchant fleet played important roles, and the British Royal Navy planned Operation Catherine for control of the Baltic Sea and its exit choke point into the North Sea.
Operation Hannibal was a German naval operation involving the evacuation by sea of German troops and civilians from the Courland Pocket, East Prussia, West Prussia and Pomerania from mid-January to May 1945 as the Red Army advanced during the East Prussian and East Pomeranian Offensives and subsidiary operations. The operation was one of the largest evacuations by sea in history.
German submarine U-48 was a Type VIIB U-boat of Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine during World War II, and the most successful that was commissioned. During her two years of active service, U-48 sank 52 ships for a total of 306,874 GRT and 1,060 tons; she also damaged three more for a total of 20,480 GRT over twelve war patrols conducted during the opening stages of the Battle of the Atlantic.
The Soviet hospital ship Armenia was a transport ship operated by the Soviet Union during World War II to carry both wounded soldiers and military cargo. It had originally been built as a passenger ship for operations on the Black Sea.
HNoMS Gyller was a Sleipner-class destroyer commissioned into the Royal Norwegian Navy in 1938. Along with the other Sleipner-class vessels in commission at that time, she took part in protecting Norwegian neutrality during the Second World War. After initially serving in the far north during the Finno-Soviet Winter War, she was redeployed to Southern Norway, escorting ships through Norwegian territorial waters. When the Germans invaded Norway on 9 April 1940, she was docked at Kristiansand. After taking part in the defence of the port city, she was captured intact by the invading Germans. Renamed Löwe, she sailed with Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine for the duration of the war.
Vorpostenboot, also referred to as VP-Boats, flakships or outpost boats, were German patrol boats which served during both World Wars. They were used around coastal areas and in coastal operations, and were tasked with – among other things – coastal patrol, ship escort, and naval combat.
The Soviet evacuation of Tallinn, also called Juminda mine battle, Tallinn disaster or Russian Dunkirk, was a Soviet operation to evacuate the 190 ships of the Baltic Fleet, units of the Red Army, and pro-Soviet civilians from the fleet's encircled main base of Tallinn in Soviet-occupied Estonia during August 1941. Near Juminda peninsula Soviet fleet ran into minefield that had been laid by the Finnish and German navies, and were repeatedly attacked by aircraft and torpedo boats, incurring major losses.
The German torpedo boat T36 was the last of 15 Type 39 torpedo boats built for the Kriegsmarine during World War II. Completed in late 1944, T36 was assigned to convoy escort duties and supporting German forces in the Baltic. At the end of January 1945, she rescued survivors from the torpedoed ocean liner MV Wilhelm Gustloff. The boat screened German warships as they bombarded advancing Soviet troops and escorted convoys over the next several months. In May, T36 began to ferry refugees; she struck a mine on 4 May and was sunk by Soviet aircraft the following day.
Wilhelm Zahn was a German Kriegsmarine officer during the Second World War. He was U-boat First Watch Officer, then became U-boat commander and was finally promoted to Korvettenkapitän on 1 April 1943. As commander of U-56 he was able to avoid detection by the destroyers surrounding HMS Nelson and came in close proximity to the British flagship, launching three torpedoes against her whilst she was carrying Winston Churchill and the high military command of the British Navy. Following that incident he became widely known as the "Man who almost killed Churchill" amongst the U-boat submariner corps. He was one of the commanding officers during the sinking of MV Wilhelm Gustloff which has been described as "Adolf Hitler'sTitanic".
Darkness Fell on Gotenhafen is a 1960 German war drama film, directed by Frank Wisbar. It dramatizes the sinking of MV Wilhelm Gustloff, which was sunk while carrying German servicemen and around 6,000 civilian evacuees. Heinz Schön presents the combined death toll as 9,343.
The Soviet naval Baltic Sea campaign in 1945 was launched by the Soviet Navy to harass enemy shipping and naval military assets of Nazi Germany on the Eastern Front during World War II. Both submarines and surface units of the Soviet Navy were employed. The campaign scored successes during Operation Hannibal.
The Barents Sea campaign in 1941 was a submarine operation in the Arctic waters of the Barents Sea during World War II. It was a combined Soviet and British campaign, with boats departing from Polyarny to harass German shipping along the Norwegian coast.
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