Ola People

I want to see what comes out of this post.
What was the biggest Ship disaster when it`s about human losses How good will you know your History. I guess for the regular Discovery watcher this question will be peanuts to answer

Although the Titanic had a loss of about 1500, I think there were ship diasters with a higher loss of life.

I know the Titanic really isn't close to the top. It's just the best known. I can't think of the name of the ship but I belive the greatest loss of life was a German ship trying to get people away from the advancing Soviets near the very end of WWII. The ship was sunk by a Russian sub and some estimates place the death toll near 10000 people. I'm pretty sure the Leopoldville, a Allied transport, had a loss of life several times that of the Titanic also. There was also a Union river steamer that had a huge loss of life when it's boiler exploded while carrying Union POWs back from some Confedrate POW camp.

HalfYank is the closest at this moment and he is right about the german ship that was sunk by a russian sub.
The ships name was the Wilhelm Gustloff The link goes to a page about this ship. Now this article is not complete. It says there were about 6000 people on board and all were refugees but the Passenger list was not complete and the passenger list only contained about 1800 names. They have constructed the complete story of the Wilhem Gustloff. After hearing and reading Eyewitness reports and survivors of the whole disaster they found out that the Number of passengers was more then 6000 it was even more then 8000 it was a staggering 10413 Passengers on board the Wilhelm Gustloff. People in every Nook and Cranny of the ship. The Ship was attacked by a russian sub that fired 3 torpedoes into it and the ship sank in only 50 minutes. They also reconstructed how the passengers would react at the moment the ship went to one side and that must have been horrific. As soon as the ship started to roll to one side people went frantic and all were running to the stairs causing enormous jams of wich the most have not survived it
From the 10413 Passengers on board of the Wilhelm Gustloff only 996 people survived the disaster. read the staggering (yet a bit incomplete) story of the Wilhelm Gustloff.

I always feel the Hood was as great loss. There were only 3 sailors who survived? Out of how many ? 1000+? That was a very tragic loss indeed.

Sean

I known this is not "one" ship but I always thought some of the biggest nautical catastrophes were the ones involving the Perisans fighting the Greeks.

Jim

I read about one which happened in WW1 were a troop ship was hit by a torpedo off the isle of white I think around 6000 african troops were on it the man who runs the IOW martime
muesum found the wreck by chance it was kept very quiet in case the public found out about it there was an article in diving mag some years back the wreck location was being kept secret to stop "wreckies" robbing it

We're 7th on the list. The Dona Paz collided with a small tanker which punched a hole below the waterline. The tanker survived. The Dona Paz was very overloaded, considered the norm with some of our low-budget shipping lines. The manifest listed less than 2000 passengers. Investigators found that the number was closer to 4000. There was a lack of lifeboats, lifevests and instructions on how to use them. It didn't help that the area where she sank was shark-infested

Didn't the Arizona have more than the Titanic? I thought they had over 2k.

On a level in one battle the loss of 3 battlecruisers in the eralier part of Jutland was quite a heavy loss of life. But single percentage wise would have to be Hood.

Found this on WW2 Maritime Disasters site
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H.M.S. HOOD
(May 24, 1941)
Britain's largest battle cruiser, (44,600 tons) sunk by the German battleship Bismarck commanded by Admiral Lütjens and captained by Captain Ernest Lindemann. In an early morning action in the Denmark Strait, between Iceland and Greenland, the Bismarck , accompanied by the cruiser Prince Eugen (Captain Helmuth Brinkmann), were enroute from Bergen in Norway to the Atlantic when they intercepted the Hood , the Prince of Wales and six escorting destroyers. From 26,000 yards, the Bismarck opened fire and at 16,500 yards scored a direct hit on the Hood's magazine causing the 112 tons of explosives to blow up. The battleship, commanded by Vice Admiral Sir Lancelot Holland, went down in about four minutes. Of a crew of 1,417 (94 officers and 1,323 ratings and Royal Marines) there were only three survivors, a death toll of 1,414. The mighty battleship had only fired its guns once in anger, at Mers El Kebir in 1940. The day the Hood sailed from Scapa Flow repairs were attempted  on a defect in the magazines hydraulic system which failed to lift the cartridge into the loading position. In the heat of battle, could this defect have caused the cartridge and the whole magazine to explode? Did the Hood in fact, self destruct? For the Bismarck to score a direct hit on the magazine at this distance must be the luckiest shot of the war. The second question is why did the German battleships break off the engagement instead of pursuing and engaging the Prince of Wales ?
(The Battle Cruiser Hood site is located at...http://www.hmshood.com> )
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I'm not sure about the number of casualties, but one of the most horrific sinkings was an American ship in the Pacific that saw many of the crew eaten by sharks. Can't remember the name.
Cheers
Peter

Flitzer, I think you're thinking of the sinking of USS Indianapolis, which was the subject of Quint's main speech in Jaws. I think that something like 1,100 men went into the water and 316 were eventually rescued. Also, to respond to an earlier post, I think that around 1,100 went down with USS Arizona. Total US casualties for the attack was 2,403.

One thing to remember about this topic. Hood, Arizona, Indianapolis, the three Battlecruisers at Jutland, all were warships. While their loss of life was horrible, it was something that the men on board were prepared for and they at least could defend themselves somewhat. Wilhelm Gustloff, though it happened in war, was mainly filled with innocent civilians.

How about the Japanese battleship Yamato....

Watched a documentary on Discovery re Wilhelm Gustloff.
Its now estimated that there where up to 10,000 on board when it sank.
It must be the worst ....

Cheers
Peter
:-)