There was an ominous feeling in the air as the old German passenger liner Steuben slipped her moorings under dark clouds and set off across a slate-grey Baltic Sea. Crowded onto the ship were 5,200 German refugees and wounded soldiers. Everyone on board was attempting to escape the fast-approaching American-armed Red Army that threatened destruction, rape and death.
Originally posted on Michael Walsh Stories and Books:
75 years ago, on January 30, 1945, in the Danzig Gulf of the Baltic Sea, the Soviet submarine S-13 under the command of Captain 3rd Rank?Alexander Marinesko?sank the German transport Wilhelm Gustloff.? Together with the giant ship, according to various…
The less charitable might be forgiven for suggesting that the Reich cruise ship, MV Monte Rosa, might better have been renamed MV Karma. This beautiful 13,882 ton twin-funneled German passenger liner was one of pre-war Germany’s fleet of super liners. Built in 1930 by Hamburg shipbuilders Bohm and Voss, MV Monte Rosa was one of five sister-ships.
His real name was Frank Rocky Fiegel. He was born in 1868 in Poland. A retired sailor he was contracted by Wiebusch’s tavern in the city of Chester, Illinois, to clean the town’s lawlessness and maintain order. Rocky Fiegel was notorious for his belligerent attitude and firmly believed that everything could be sorted out with his fists.
The French Line’s Normandie is one of few contenders for the title Greatest Liner Ever. She was a ship of superlatives: the largest ship in the world for five years, the first liner to exceed 1,000 feet in length; to exceed 80,000 tons; the largest turbo-electric powered liner; and the first to make a 30 knot Atlantic crossing.
Care to step aboard the RMS Titanic? What seemed like an impossibility is slowly becoming a reality. Vintage Digital Revival and Four Funnels Entertainment have recreated the interior of the stricken vessel in immaculate detail. It’s part of their long-gestating ‘Titanic: Honor and Glory’ video game project.
For 36 years a contender for the most interesting oceangoing liner sailed the high seas. Bożena Aksamit writing her account of the Polish trans-Atlantic liner, says, ‘It was the pride of the Second Republic, a piece of living art, and the only floating representative of free Poland during World War II.’
Perhaps the most sorrowful part of the entire Titanic saga is hearing the survivor’s personal stories. It can be heart-wrenching to listen to their recollections. How they ended up on the luxury ocean-liner in the first place and how they dodged death on the night of April 14, 1912. Over 1,500 passengers perished in the ocean and only about 700 passengers, officers and ratings were saved.
The Suez Canal has provided a link as important as the jugular vein to the world of commerce since 1858. Its importance has dramatically diminished since a container carrying vessel buried its bows in the canal’s banks and constipated the seaway’s traffic.
On May 2, 1945, the German Armed Forces – not the government had capitulated, overwhelmed by the combined forces of the Soviet Union, British Empire and industrial-military might of the United States.
Michael Walsh Stories and Books 
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