1945 April 16th. German refugee ship Goya sunk.

• 1945 – More than 7,000 die when the German refugee ship Goya is sunk by a Soviet submarine.
• The Goya was a German transport ship sunk by a Soviet submarine in the Baltic Sea, near the end of the Second World War, while carrying wounded Wehrmacht troops and civilians who were fleeing the advance of Soviet forces. Most of the crew and passengers died. The sinking of the Goya was one of the biggest single-incident maritime losses of life of the war, and as such one of the largest maritime losses of life in history, with just 183 survivors among 7,000 passengers and crew.
  As the convoy passed the Hel Peninsula at the exit of the Danzig Bay, it was sighted by the Soviet minelayer submarine L-3which also carried torpedoes. Even though the Goya was faster than submarines, the convoy was slowed by the engine problems of the Kronenfels, which also required a 20-minute stop for repairs. At around 23:52, the commander of L-3, Captain Vladimir Konovalov, gave the order to fire.
  Within seven minutes of being torpedoed, the Goya, a freighter without the safety precautions of a passenger ship, sank to a depth of approximately 76m, with the loss of possibly more than 6,000 people killed, either within the ship, or outside by drowning and hypothermia in the icy waters. The exact number can probably never be determined. The captain of another ship mentioned a figure of 7-8,000 passengers and crew in his report. In total, only 183 people were saved from the water by M 256 and M 328. It may be the second-worst maritime disaster by number of casualties during World War II, following the Wilhelm Gustloff.
  The MV Wilhelm Gustloff was a German ship which was sunk on 30 January 1945 by a Soviet submarine in the Baltic Sea while evacuating German civilians, officials and military personnel from Gdynia(Gotenhafen), occupied Poland, as the Red Army advanced. By one estimate 9,400 people died, which would make it the largest loss of life in a single ship sinking in history.