The Sinking of the Goya

[Tim]

About a year ago I posted some messages on a few forums relating to the Goya, with very limited success. Recently I read somewhere that a movie was being made on the Wilhelm Gustloff. The quote below is pretty much all the information I have been able to find, although, there are a few disagreements amongst authors as to the number of survivors and numbers on board.

Why is it that the Goya receives hardly any mention despite being one of, if not, the greatest maritime disaster? Any opinions?

Also, if there is someone who does have more information or knows where I might be able to find it, please let me know.

Thanks

Tim



From http://www.abc.se/~m10354/pic/mar/goya.jpg

The sinking of the Goya on April 16, 1945, just three weeks before the end of the war in Europe, is acknowledged as almost certainly the greatest maritime disaster, in terms of lives lost, of all time. The converted 5,230-ton transport ship had set out from Hela near Danzig (Gdansk) with its human cargo of some 7,000 refugees and wounded soldiers.

Just a few minutes before midnight, the Soviet submarine L-3 fired two torpedoes at the Goya, which found their marks amidship and stern. Almost immediately the ship broke in half, her masts crashing down upon the passengers crowding the decks. Before anyone could escape from the holds, the onrushing sea quickly drowned out the anguished screams of the refugees below. The vessel sank in just four minutes, resulting in the loss of nearly 7,000 lives. There were only 183 survivors.

Concluding his essay on this chapter of history, Ries wrote:

Although little known, the sinkings of the Wilhelm Gustloff and the Goya -- with a combined loss of more than 12,000 lives -- remain the greatest maritime catastrophes of all time. Moreover, the deliberate and unnecessary killing of thousands of innocent civilian refugees and helpless wounded men aboard the Gustloff, the Steuben and the Goya -- as well as many other smaller and lesser known vessels -- is unquestionably one of the great atrocities of the Second World War.

From http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v17/v17n2p22_Weber.html

[Andy H]

Hi Tim

Read my thread abck at the beginning of May about the sinking of the Strueban (Spelt wrong). That was the 3rd ship sunk around the same time as the WG & Goya.

Andy from the Shire

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[Erich]

Tim :

Thanks for the url's, wild camo eh ? You might want to check the following if you can find a copy through Motorbuch Verlag.....Heinz Schön's Ostsee 45, Menschen, Schiffe and Schicksale. I went through Angle ray books for this one. CY, that would be the Steuben lost on February 9, 45 with 2700 dead. A big problem maybe that because the Goya was sunk so late in the war......April 16th and not too much documentation can be found. Heinz Schön is one of the survivors of the Wilhelm Gustloff and has an incredible archiv covering these unfortunately ships.

Erich

[Tim]

Andy, thanks for your suggestion! I checked out your post, some good replies, in particular USAF's reply

On 16 April 1945, the Soviet submarine "L 3" commanded by Captain Third Rank Vladimir K. Konovalov sank the German liner "Goya" with two torpedoes.

Does anyone have any information on Konovalov?

Also,

In his memoirs, "Ten Years and Twenty Days, Großadmiral Karl Dönitz commented on these losses in the overall picture of the German sea evacuation from the approaching Soviet forces:

The losses that occurred in the transports that were sunk were truly appalling 4,000 were lost with the Wilhelm Gustloff, 7,000 with the Goya and 3,000 with the hospital ship General Steuben. Painful though these losses were, they represented only 1 percent of the total brought out by sea; 99 percent succeeded in arriving safely at ports on the western Baltic. On the other hand, the percentage of refugees lost on the overland route was very much higher.

I found some information on the original mention that the goya receiced, a slight difference was noted -

At the time, the loss of the Goya was hardly noticed in Germany, which had grown accustomed to similar catastrophes on a daily basis. All the same, it was cited in the report of the Führer Naval Conference of April 18, the last conference of which there is any archival record. It is written in language that characterized the cool professionalism that the German Naval High Command had shown throughout the entire period of the evacuation: [22]

In connection with the loss of several hundred persons in the sinking of the steamship Goya, the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy points out that personnel losses in the transports in the Eastern areas up to this time have been extremely small, that is, 0.49 percent. These unfortunate losses seem very large every time a ship is sunk, and it is easy to forget that at the time a large number of ships with numerous wounded and refugees reach port safely.

From http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v12/v12p371_Ries.html

For anyone who is interested, I also found some interesting information relating to three already mentioned ships and the Cap Arcona and Thielbeck.

At http://members.tripod.com/Tenika/tragedy.htm

Any thoughts?

Tim

[Tim]

Hi Erich, yes wild camo alright, you can actually spot the ship if you look at the photograph closely enough. :roll:

There is another photograph of the Goya, from the front, but I can't seem to find it anymore. It was more popular than the camo photo and now all I can find is the camo one! Maybe someone else might have more luck finding it.

Thanks for the book suggestion! My grandfather was one of the few survivors of the Goya, that's how I heard about the Goya and was surprised that it is hardly mentioned. He passed away a few months ago, so I wasn't really able to learn that much about his or his father's experiences. Despite the fact that he did not like to talk about his experiences, I was able to learn that he had been wounded in the arm and they had placed a timber brace (not sure of the proper term) along his arm. They had said that he probably wouldn't be able to use his arm again, though it did heal perfectly later on. After the ship was hit, the timber brace helped him to stay afloat in the water before being rescued.

Does anyone know of any other survivors? I will try to get hold of a copy of the book you mentioned, thanks Erich!

Tim

[JariL]

Hi all,

Weren't all three ships unescorted when they were sunk? I seem to remember that Cajus Becker's book on the naval operations in the Baltic mentions that the Naval command relied on the high speed of Steuben, Goya and Gustloff with terrible results. If this was the case it is a bit hypocrtical to say that "we only lost 1 % of the people" especially because very few ships were lost when they were escorted by T-Boats or destroyers. And when they were, the chances of the passengers surviving were much better because there were other vessels that could at least try to help. After the sub was located of course.

As a minor detail. It is possible that some of the torpedoes that were used in the attacks against Steuben, Gustloff and Goya were Finnish. After the armistice in September 1944 Finnish Navy was obliged to take Soviet submarines through Finnish costal sea routes to Hangö, which was a temporary Soviet base for submarines. There the subs were fuelled and armed before they headed to Southern Baltic. Soviet government bought the torpedoes of the Finnish Navy with chocklate and candies (sugar was on card in Finland those days). These torpedoes were then loaded to the Russian subs in Hangö.

In general German Navy worked wonders with their transports in the Baltic. It was estimated that more than 2 million people were transported over sea to Germany and Denmark. In the last moment before the fighting stopped in the East, Kriegsmarine sent all its available vessels to pick up as many people as possible before the troops in Kurland had to surrender to the Russians. Again according to Becker the ships were so fully loaded that the main deck was barely over the sea level when they took course to Copenhagen and other Danish and German ports. At the designated sease fire time all the ships were still to the East of the demarkation line and according to the terms of the agreement should have deactivated their weapons by removing breach blocks from the guns and turn into Soviet controlled ports. The first of the two was done, but instead of turning back the ships headed with full speed to the West. Soviet airforce and navy made some attempts to stop some of the ships but when Germans opened fire the attacks were called off (obviously some guns had been made operational again). Curiously the western allied made no attampt to return any of the people on board of the ships to the East. There were numerous other cases in other parts of Germany where the sease fire agreement was interpreted much more to the letter.

German capital ships also gave very effective fire support to the troops defending Kurland. Without the big naval guns the front could not have been held.

Regards,

Jari

[Erich]

Actually some were escorted by the Torpedo boats and S-booten, but were overloaded with refugees and soldiers so they couldn't properly function.
I have a friend that sailed in may of 45 on the Sachsenwald and he has told me several times that they sailed almost the same route as the sunken ships, Goya, Steuben, W.G. and others and it was very eerie. Flak postions were on the lookout night and day as they made their way over the Ost See to Copenhagen undisturbed. During those days on the seas they had honour guards firing and a few words spoken on behalf of the fallen on these ships...........get the Heinz Schön book !!!!!!

E

[Andy H]

Hi Tim

Looking through Jurgen Rohwer's work on Allied submarine attacks of WW2 and he lists the following info for the attack on the Goya.

Three torpedo's fired and that she was at 2353hrs on April 16th 1945. There were 6,666 persons on board of which only 334 survived.

Konovalov doesn't appear anywhere before Jan 1945 in Rohwer's work, from then on he is reported to have made some 13 attacks, off which 5 have confirmed sinkings and one in dispute (Minesweeper M3138, in March'45)

Andy from the Shire

[Kurt_Steiner]

Are these actions truly acts of war? Did the sub commander know it was a ship crowded with civilans?

Sometimes I think that the words of Ilya Ehrenburg are too overquoted. However, when I see actions like these one, I'm not so sure.

Anyway, all wars are cruel.

We must admit that the experience of the East front won't inspire too much humanitarian actions, and there would be little sympathy or quarter in return to either the German civilian or military population.

Best regards

[Andreas]

I do not think these qualify as war crimes. The ships were not labelled as hospital ships, which AIUI is the only way to get out of naval action if you are a belligerent nation's vessel. The Soviet captain is unlikely to have checked who or what they carried - or if he did, the article does not say so. Seeing that the attack occurred at midnight, I find it unlikely to presume that he did know.

IHR.org is, IMO, a revisionist website, and you will have difficulties finding unbiased opinion on it. In my view.

Tragic cases they were, but warcrimes they were not.

[alf]

THere is a discussion on the Wilhelm Gustoff and was it a war crime at http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=41999

The short answer it was not, nor was the Goya and the others. As a human tradegy they are on a scale well beyond the Titanic, Empiress of Ireland and Lusitania, more should be taught about them.

http://www.deepimage.co.uk/wrecks/wilhe ... f_main.htm is a good link on the Wilhelm Gustoff, the site does cover the other losses but not in so much detail sadly, ie the Admiral Hipper arrived on the scene of the sinking and left making no effort to rescue survivors