In this episode, Graeme Hill is joined by maritime historian John McCrystal for a gripping account of the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff, the deadliest maritime disaster in history. Set against the brutal final months of the Second World War, the conversation traces the ship’s origins as a Nazi showcase vessel, its desperate transformation into a refugee transport, and the catastrophic torpedo attack that claimed thousands of lives in the freezing Baltic Sea. It is a sobering story of war, flight, human panic and of a tragedy still far less widely known than its scale deserves.