Sinking of Goya

16 April 1945, Baltic Sea, off Cape Rozewie

Soviet success; Goya sunk with more than 6,000 people

In the last weeks of the war, the cargo ship Goya sailed from the Hel peninsula in a convoy for Copenhagen carrying more than 6,000 refugees and wounded soldiers, packed into holds never meant for people. Just before midnight on 16 April the minelaying submarine L-3 under Vladimir Konovalov hit her with two torpedoes. She broke in two and sank in about four minutes. About 180 people were saved; more than 6,000 died, perhaps 7,000, one of the deadliest sinkings in history.