Daily History Picture: Shipwreck Coming December 4, 2015
Author: Beach Combing | in : Historical Pictures , trackback
Wilhelm Gustloff setting off, 1945: all will die. [should be ‘most will die’]
22 Dec 2015: Lanark writes in, The amazing thing about the Wilhelm Gustloff was that they didn’t all die… despite the ship being sunk in minus 18 degree temperatures in January in the Baltic. Over 1200 survivors were pulled from the water by three rescue ships ( the Löwe, the Göttingen and the Gotenland) and many small boats and a few torpedo patrol boats. In fact seven hours after the Wilhelm Gustloff went down in freezing temperatures, a tiny infant was found alive, wrapped snugly in a lifeboat full of frozen adult corpses. Over 9,00 perished – but that is significantly less that 10, 280. Especially significant for the survivors.
