Goya was a Norwegian motor freighter. Completed in 1940 for Johan Ludwig Mowinckel Rederi company, she was named after Francisco de Goya. Following the invasion of Norway she was seized by Germany and pressed into service of the Kriegsmarine as a troop transport.
Near the end of the Second World War, the ship took part in Operation Hannibal, the evacuation of German military personnel and civilians from German-held pockets along the Baltic Sea. Loaded with thousands of refugees and Wehrmacht soldiers, the ship was sunk on 16 April 1945 by the Soviet submarine L-3.
Most of the crew and passengers died. The sinking of 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 roughly 6,700 passengers and crew.
Goya was originally built as a freighter by the Akers Mekaniske Verksted shipyard in Oslo in 1940. The ship was 146 m (475.72 feet) long and 17.4 m (57.08 feet) wide, had a capacity of 5,230 GRT, and a top speed of 18 knots. Following the German occupation of Norway, the ship was seized by Germany and in 1942 refitted as an auxiliary transport for German U-boats. In 1943 she was turned into a depot ship, but the following year she was moved to Memel (modern Klaipėda), where she was used as a target ship for torpedo practice by the 24th U-boat Flotilla.
On 16 April 1945, Goya was sailing from Gotenhafen Gdynia, around the Hel Peninsula and across the Baltic Sea to Kiel in western Germany. The convoy included Goya, as well as two smaller vessels (Kronenfels and a steam tug Aegir) and two minesweepers as convoy escort: M-256 and M-328. In accordance to Operation Hannibal, organised by the Fuhrer and the head of the Kriegsmarine Karl Donitz, the Goya was one of more than 1,000 ships commissioned to participate in the evacuation. The ship which was meant to accommodate only 850 crew members but was overcrowded with more than 7,000 eastern European refugees, including 200 men of the 25th Panzer Regiment (part of 7th Panzer Division).
Four hours after leaving the port, close to the southern tip of Hel Peninsula, the convoy was attacked by Soviet bombers. During the air raids one of the bombs hit Goya, but damage was minimal. After rounding the Hel Peninsula and leaving Danzig Bay, several miles north of Cape Rixhöft (Cape Rozewie), the convoy was sighted by the Soviet minelayer submarine L-3, which also carried torpedoes. While Goya was faster than submarines, the convoy was slowed down by the engine problems of the Kronenfels, which also required a 20-minute stop for repairs. At precisely 4 minutes before midnight (local time), the commander of L-3, Captain Vladimir Konovalov, gave the order to fire a spread of four torpedoes. Two of them hit Goya; one struck amidships, the second exploded in the stern, sending an immense plume of fire and smoke bursting into the sky. The impact of the torpedoes was so great that the ship’s masts collapsed upon the refugees sleeping on the top deck. Within moments, the ship broke in two and while fire consumed the upper portions of the Goya, it sank in less than four minutes, drowning thousands in their sleep, shortly after midnight.
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