The Knoxville Journal from Knoxville, Tennessee • 63

if I a rV is rr 5 i r't i Vjl 1 muss uillnT uiillnlv less than a thousand tons of humanity and with so many infants among the passengers the number could be actually greater Out went the Wilhelm Gustloff into the storm alone for she drew too much water to take the inshore route followed by the others Twelve knots was all she could manage She pitched and she rolled in the short steep seas of the Baltic shuddering under their impact Below decks the passengers endured the miseries of seasickness And outside off the Stolp Bank death was awaiting them Russian submarines emboldened by the slackening of German naval effort had pushed far out into the Baltic One of them was watching this obvious escape route Perhaps the Russian imagination was not lively enough to grasp the idea that there were thousands of helpless people on board Perhaps his orders were strict German submarines never had shown mercy He was able to approach to such close range that despite the raging storm and dark night he could take aim At nine at night he hit the Wilhelm Gustloff with three torpedoes Even so she floated for half an half an hour during which the frantic people on icy decks fought for foom in the few lifeboats and during which an ancient German torpedo boat was able to arrive and try to save lives not as many as she might have saved for she had to beat off further torpedo attacks After floating fairly stably for half an hour the Wilhelm Gustloff suddenly turned on her side lection of old ships reminders of the enormous training program that had been in existence Many were old passenger liners with names familiar to traveled Americans the Hamburg the Hama and so on The ships and base personnel had to be saved from the Russians in any case Doenitz gave the order and floods of refugees came pouring on board the ships like water through a burst dam Women and children and old men cripples even lunatics for the grim Nazi rule was breaking down and there was small effort to sort out the useful from the useless What effort was made led to women paying sums of money for the privilege of carrying babies in their arms as they walked up the gangway while terrified men put on clothes or buttoned their coats over one arm to look like wounded The decks were thick with snow and ice and the gloomy sky of the short winter day bore promise of further storms Every available inch of deck throughout every ship was occupied by refugees How many people did the Wilhelm Gustloff carry when she steamed out from Dantzig under the full power of her groaning engines? No one can tell The crew may have numbered 200 the submarine school personnel as many as 2000 But the refugees? Five thousand would have found fairly comfortable accommodation But for a short voyage along the coast with the need for crowding on board every possible person 10000 would not be an impossible figure That would be sending avalanches of people dqwn her decks and then she sank In that icy water the 10000 people would not live long nor did they At Hitler's headquarters Doenitz reported in his cheerful vein connection with the sinking of the passenger ship Wilhelm Gustloff painful as any loss may be it is very fortunate that more have not At that very moment the General Steuben was on her way from Pillau She was 17000 tons and probably she too had 10000 people on board Off the Stolp Bank she too was hit by a torpedo only one but she sank in five minutes in the darkness Her helpless escort heard the screaming of the passengers as she slid below water And following her in this procession of death came the Goya another poor old ship She too was hit by torpedoes Her boilers exploded and she sank in a few seconds Even so a hundred people were picked up by the escort ships One of them was an officer of the Goya who gave a moderate estimate of the number who died in those few seconds only 7000 in the Goya only 7000 more corpses along the Baltic beaches There were other ships sunk along that coast at that time too Were at least 30000 dead enough to enlighten the German people regarding the horrors of submarine warfare? And were they enough to enlighten the Russian navy regarding its possibilities? History shows that mankind usually learns every lesson except the right one THE AMERICAN WEEKLY February 7 1954 II.