Struggling to reach Germany through the raging waters and freezing gusts of wind of the Baltic Sea, the cruise liner MV Wilhelm Gustloff made a desperate midnight dash. Her escorts had forsaken her, leaving the 2,000-passenger vessel on her own to deliver 10,000 German refugees away from the unrelenting Soviet advance on Eastern Europe.
Aware of the atrocities Soviet forces inflicted upon the Germans, the refugees traveled furtively through the enemy-infested waters while the cruise liner kept her lights off. However, the darkness forced the crew to turn on the searchlights, and the dazzling lights soon attracted the attention of Soviet submarine S-13.
Then, while the fear-struck passengers listened as Hitler made a hopeless last radio address to the nation urging the population to resist, the enemy vessel fired three torpedoes right at them…
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