Best Shipwreck

Bismarck was a German battleship commissioned into the Kriegsmarine during the Second World War. On its first operational sortie in May 1941, it fought British ships in the Denmark Strait and sank the battlecruiser HMS Hood, prompting an extensive Royal Navy pursuit. British aircraft disabled its st...

USS Arizona (BB-39) was a Pennsylvania-class battleship built for the United States Navy in the 1910s. During the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the ship was bombed and sank, resulting in the deaths of 1,177 crew members. The wreckage remains at the bottom of Pearl Harbor, and...

MV Doña Paz was a Philippine-registered passenger ferry that sank after colliding with the Vector, a small coastal oil tanker, on December 20, 1987. The collision occurred in the Tablas Strait, igniting a massive fire that spread to both vessels. An estimated 4,375 people died in the incident, makin...

MV Wilhelm Gustloff was a German military transport ship originally built as a cruise ship for the Strength Through Joy organization in the 1930s. On January 30, 1945, it was torpedoed by the Soviet submarine S-13 while participating in Operation Hannibal, evacuating German civilians and military pe...

RMS Lusitania was a British ocean liner operated by the Cunard Line that held the Blue Riband for the fastest Atlantic crossing early in its career. During World War I, on May 7, 1915, a German U-boat torpedoed and sank the ship off the southern coast of Ireland. The sinking resulted in the deaths o...

RMS Titanic was a British passenger liner operated by the White Star Line and was one of the largest ships afloat at the time of its maiden voyage. On April 15, 1912, the vessel struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic Ocean and sank, leading to the deaths of approximately 1,500 passengers and crew d...

The Raft of the Medusa is a monumental oil painting completed by Theodore Gericault in 1818 to 1819 and now displayed in the Louvre. It represents survivors of the French frigate Meduse, which ran aground off West Africa in 1816, leaving passengers and crew on a makeshift raft where many died. Geric...

USS Indianapolis (CA-35) was a Portland-class heavy cruiser of the United States Navy that saw extensive service during World War II. In July 1945, the ship completed a top-secret mission to deliver components for the first atomic bomb to Tinian island. On July 30, 1945, the vessel was torpedoed by...

RMS Lancastria was a British Cunard Line ocean liner that was requisitioned by the government for use as a troopship during World War II. On June 17, 1940, the ship was bombed by German aircraft off the coast of Saint-Nazaire, France, while participating in Operation Ariel, the evacuation of British...

HMS Hood was a Royal Navy battlecruiser commissioned after the First World War and used extensively as a symbol of British naval power during the interwar period. On 24 May 1941, she fought the German battleship Bismarck and heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen in the Denmark Strait, suffered a catastrophic ma...

MV Estonia was a cruise ferry built in 1979 that operated in the Baltic Sea for Estline, a joint Estonian-Swedish shipping company. On September 28, 1994, while sailing from Tallinn to Stockholm, the ship encountered heavy weather and its bow visor detached, causing the vehicle ramp to open and the...

SS Cap Arcona was a German passenger liner launched for transatlantic service and later used by Nazi Germany during the Second World War. On 3 May 1945, British aircraft attacked and sank it in the Bay of Lubeck while thousands of concentration camp prisoners were confined aboard. Most of the prison...

SS Mont-Blanc was a French freighter built in Middlesbrough, England, and requisitioned by the French government to transport munitions during World War I. On December 6, 1917, the ship collided with the Norwegian vessel SS Imo in Halifax Harbour, Nova Scotia, Canada. The impact ignited the cargo of...

SS Edmund Fitzgerald was an American Great Lakes freighter launched in 1958, designed to carry iron ore pellets across Lake Superior. On November 10, 1975, the vessel encountered a severe winter storm and sank in Canadian waters, resulting in the loss of its entire 29-member crew. The exact cause of...

MV Sewol was a South Korean passenger ferry that operated a route between Incheon and Jeju Island. On April 16, 2014, the vessel capsized while carrying 476 passengers and crew, most of whom were high school students on a field trip from Danwon High School. The incident resulted in 304 deaths, large...

MV Le Joola was a Senegalese government-owned roll-on/roll-off passenger ferry that primarily transported passengers between Ziguinchor in the Casamance region and Dakar. On the night of September 26, 2002, the ferry capsized off the coast of The Gambia during a severe storm. The ship was heavily ov...

MV Goya was a Norwegian freighter that was requisitioned by Germany during World War II and used as a troop transport and refugee vessel. On April 16, 1945, while participating in the evacuation of German military personnel and civilians from the eastern Baltic, the ship was spotted and torpedoed by...

K-141 Kursk was a Russian Navy Oscar II-class nuclear-powered cruise-missile submarine. It sank in the Barents Sea on 12 August 2000 after explosions involving its torpedoes during a naval exercise, killing all 118 people aboard. The wreck was later raised in a major salvage operation, while its dam...

USS Thresher (SSN-593) was a United States Navy nuclear-powered attack submarine and the lead vessel of its class. It sank in the North Atlantic on 10 April 1963 during deep-diving trials, killing all 129 people aboard and becoming the first nuclear-powered submarine lost at sea. The disaster prompt...

Batavia was a ship of the Dutch East India Company that struck Morning Reef in the Houtman Abrolhos off Western Australia in 1629 during its maiden voyage to Java. After the wreck, a group led by Jeronimus Cornelisz terrorized the stranded survivors and murdered more than one hundred people before r...

Akagi was an Imperial Japanese Navy aircraft carrier converted from an Amagi-class battlecruiser hull after the Washington Naval Treaty altered Japanese construction plans. It served as the flagship of Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo's carrier striking force during the attack on Pearl Harbor in December...

HMHS Britannic was the third and final vessel of the White Star Line's Olympic-class ocean liners, serving as a hospital ship during World War I. The ship was originally intended to be a passenger liner named RMS Britannic, but was requisitioned by the British Admiralty before her completion. On Nov...

USS Yorktown (CV-5) was a United States Navy aircraft carrier commissioned in 1937 and the lead ship of the Yorktown class. After participating in the Battle of the Coral Sea, it was rapidly repaired and returned to action for the Battle of Midway in June 1942. Japanese aircraft inflicted severe dam...

RMS Empress of Ireland was a Canadian Pacific Line passenger vessel that entered transatlantic service in 1906, operating primarily between Liverpool and Quebec City. In the early hours of May 29, 1914, she was struck on her starboard side by the Norwegian collier Storstad in dense fog on the St. La...

Musashi was an Imperial Japanese Navy battleship of the Yamato class and the sister ship of Yamato. Built around exceptionally heavy armor and armed with nine 46 centimeter main guns, it was among the largest battleships constructed. United States carrier aircraft sank Musashi during the Battle of t...

HMAS Sydney II was a modified Leander-class light cruiser of the Royal Australian Navy that served during the Second World War. After operations in the Mediterranean, it returned to Australian waters and encountered the disguised German auxiliary cruiser Kormoran off Western Australia on 19 November...

SS Sultana was a wooden side-wheel steamboat operating on the Mississippi River during the final weeks of the American Civil War. On 27 April 1865, overloaded with passengers, including many recently released Union prisoners of war, it suffered a catastrophic boiler explosion north of Memphis and bu...

USS Johnston, hull number DD-557, was a Fletcher-class destroyer of the United States Navy commissioned during the Second World War. On 25 October 1944, during the Battle off Samar, Johnston attacked a much larger Japanese force while helping protect American escort carriers and was sunk after susta...

Kaga was an Imperial Japanese Navy aircraft carrier originally laid down as a battleship before being converted under the naval treaty restrictions of the 1920s. It participated in operations in China and in the attack on Pearl Harbor as part of Japan's carrier striking force. American carrier aircr...