She was the most modern submarine in the Baltic. How did it happen that ORP ‘Orzeł’ (Polish for: Eagle) had to escape from the Tallinn harbour and, above all, how did her secret journey to the UK pan out?
by Daniel Czerwiński
‘Orzeł’ enters service
ORP ‘Orzeł’ made its first appearance in Gdynia on 10 February 1939. It was greeted by crowds of thousands, but this was hardly surprising. Its construction was partly financed by Polish contributions. The fundraising campaign, initiated in the Polish Army, was generously supported by Poles, who thus responded to calls by German politicians for a peaceful revision of the Polish and German borders. The numerous committees formed were finally merged into the Naval Defence Fund, which coordinated the procurement and purchase of a modern submarine for Poland. The Polish government and the Navy command finally decided to order the ships (two twin vessels) from the consortium of Dutch shipyards Koninklijke Maatschappij De Schelde of Vlissingen. In addition to public contributions, financing was to come from the sale of Polish agricultural produce and orders completed by the Dutch in Polish factories. The contract was concluded in The Hague on 29 January 1936. The Polish Navy already had in service submarines of the Wilk type built in France. However, the newly ordered ones were to be faster and better armed. They were not to be submarine mine-layers, but ships capable of hunting down potential aggressors in Baltic waters.
ORP ‘Orzeł’ was launched on 15 January 1938. The completion of armament and sea trials continued for a year and, finally, on 2 February 1939, the Polish flag was raised on the ship. Five days later, ‘Orzeł’ arrived at Oksywie, and on 10 February, Navy Day and the anniversary of Poland’s Wedding to the Sea, it officially entered service.
Cmdr. Henryk Kłoczkowski, one of the most experienced officers in the Polish Navy, became the ship’s commander. He had served in the tsarist navy and also in the river flotilla during the war with the Bolsheviks. He had also graduated from the elite schools for submariners in France. All in all, he seemed the best choice for ORP ‘Orzeł’.
And thus the war
On 1 September, ‘Orzeł’ was the last of the Polish ships to leave port. This happened because the commander dismissed some of the sailors living in Oksywie and he himself was also off the ship. For this reason, ‘Orzeł’ did not go to sea until seven in the morning. It began the implementation of operation ‘Worek’ (Eng. ‘Sack’), which established the sectors of operation for Polish submarines. ‘Orzeł’ remained at the command’s disposal, and its area of operation was the Bay of Puck and the Bay of Gdańsk up to the level of the harbour of the port of Gdańsk. It might seem that patrolling such shallow waters was a waste of the ship’s capabilities, but on the other hand, it gave it the opportunity to attack German ships in case of an attack on Gdynia, and most importantly, ‘Orzeł’ was within the range of Polish coastal artillery, which could support it at any time.
Following three days of fruitless patrols, the commander of ‘Orzeł’ decided to leave the sector and head for the Gotland area. The vessel was attacked several times by the Germans with depth charges as a result of which it suffered light damage. Cmdr. Kłoczkowski decided that remaining in the designated sector did not offer the possibility of attacking the German fleet and, above all, exposed the ship to further attacks. However, this was a violation of the command’s order, which did not prescribe a change of sectors until the following day. In spite of this, Kłoczkowski did not go to the new location, but remained in a relatively quiet area. However, problems were piling up on the ship. A compressor had broken down, which could not be repaired at sea. In addition, sailors, including the commander himself, began to fall ill. He had been unable to take food since 8 September and there was no doctor on board. All this led to the decision to disembark Kłoczkowski. The fleet command presented two options: to call at Hel, or some neutral port.
It was too dangerous to return to the Polish coast, so the latter option was chosen. All that was needed was to find a suitable place. The closest destination was Sweden, but Estonia’s Tallinn was selected instead. Perhaps because Cmdr. Kłoczkowski knew the port from earlier courtesy visits, or perhaps because the Polish command had not predicted before the war that Polish ships would be interned there…
‘Orzeł’ appeared at the entry to the harbour in Tallinn at 9.30 p.m. on 14 September. It made contact with the captain’s office, and the Estonians agreed that the ship enter the harbour to carry out repairs and be put out to sea again within the 24-hour period stipulated by international law. Commander Kłoczkowski went to hospital and Capt. Jan Grudziński took command. The situation was further complicated when it became apparent that the German merchant ship ‘Thalatta’ was in the port. The Estonians were afraid that ‘Orzeł’ – if it went out as planned – would torpedo the Germans. Therefore, the Poles were to leave Tallinn 24 hours after the Germans. However, the Estonians, contrary to their earlier agreement, decided to intern the Polish ship. They referred to the agreement concluded in 1938 by the governments of Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia, which stipulated that, in the event of an armed conflict on the Baltic Sea, the parties to the agreement would intern any submarine found in their territorial waters. This was to apply to seaworthy vessels, and the Estonians considered that ORP ‘Orzeł’ ‘had not lost its manoeuvrability and seaworthiness’. Undoubtedly, however, this decision was influenced by pressure from the Germans, whose envoy reported ‘Orzeł’s’ entry faster than the Polish military attaché. However, from the perspective of international law and even the provisions of the agreement invoked by the Estonians, their decision was unlawful. All the more so because the ‘Thalatta’ did not leave port on 16 September as planned at all.
Further events unfolded rapidly. The Estonians tore down the Polish flag and began to disarm the ship, although disarming the torpedoes went very sluggishly.
tried to protest, but after contacting the Polish envoy, he received orders to destroy all secret files and maps with minefields marked on them. He carried out this task. Other maps were taken by the Estonians. They also examined the crew, as Kłoczkowski’s symptoms could indicate typhus. He was hospitalised (as was another sailor), where the crew had handed over his personal belongings. The others on board, however, had no intention of waiting idly for further developments. At a meeting of officers and crew, the decision was taken to attempt an escape. Lieutenant Andrzej Piasecki, the second-in-command, undertook to carry out this idea. He assigned tasks to those willing to help and set about devising an escape plan. He was assisted in this mainly by Petty Officer Józef Adamowicz and First Mate Teodor Pokrywka.
However, this was not an easy task. ‘Orzeł’ had been towed deep into the harbour. She was also positioned with her stern facing the exit. However, the slow discharge of torpedoes proved helpful. To remove the stern torpedoes, the Estonians had to turn ‘Orzeł’ around. They did this on Sunday 17 September. The Poles were happy to help with the unloading, but it was not a matter of real help; it was part of the plan. This was because the Polish sailors had damaged the rope necessary for unloading. As this was happening on a Sunday, a new one was not delivered until the end of the day. Similarly, the gyrocompass was saved. The head of the radio department, Petty Officer Kotecki, despite being supervised by an Estonian radio operator, caused a short circuit, after which the Estonian stopped watching him and the device was restored to service. The screw shafts survived because the Estonian was told that they should be preserved first. Depth measurements of the harbour basin were taken while fishing. Seafarers who received passes from the Estonians to enter the harbour, in turn, used this opportunity to obtain information about the customs of Estonian vessels, e.g. about the hours of returns to the ships.
Out to sea!
The deadline for the escape was after midnight. It turned out, however, that the commander of the guard responsible for guarding ‘Orzeł’ came on board. Nevertheless, he was not very inquisitive and did not notice that the crew, instead of sleeping, were just waiting for the order to go to sea. Because of this, the escape was postponed for almost two hours. At 2 a.m., the bravura operation of the Polish sailors began, which came as a shock not only to the Estonians. The Poles overpowered the guard at the gangway, as well as the guard at the ship’s dispatch. The telephone was hoisted onto the quay so that communication with the base would not be lost. The moorings had already been over-sawn by the Poles, so after a violent jerking of the engines, they managed to break free. ‘Orzeł’ set off, but then the searchlights came on and the machine guns sounded. On leaving the harbour, the ship snagged on the breakwater, but luckily there was no major damage. The Estonians failed to either see to or destroy the fleeing Polish ship. There was an uproar in the Estonian navy. The punishment for the escape of ‘Orzeł’ was borne by its commander, who was dismissed from his post. Already at the end of September, the country had to agree to the establishment of Soviet bases on its territory.
For the ‘Orzeł’s’ sailors, the biggest problem became the lack of any maps. Without them, operating in the Baltic Sea seemed utter madness. However, Captain Grudziński decided that they would operate around the Polish coast until the fuel, fresh water and food supplies ran out. Captain Grudziński sent information about the fate of the ship to the Polish command. In response, he received a reply that he could get maps and ciphers. However, everything was done openly, so no one gave any data on the location. ‘Orzeł’ had to cope alone.
Polish sailors managed to find a solution. During the search, the Estonians missed a few things. The most valuable was a book containing a German inventory of lighthouses. Every lighthouse and beacon buoy was described there, along with geographical coordinates. With this help, 2Lt Marian Mokrski produced a map of almost the entire Baltic Sea, the Danish Straits, the Kattegat and the Skagerrak, i.e. all the areas where the ship was to operate. It was called ‘Map No. 1. The Baltic Sea and the Danish Straits. Prepared by the Polish Navy. Scale 1:1500 thousand. Depths given in metres and speculations. 1939’. Just as unusual as the name sounded, unusual were the entries on it. For it is difficult to find on military maps terms such as ‘Stone Boundary of the Northern Tracks’, ‘Bay of the Two Estonians’, ‘Fear Shoal’ or ‘Marian Trail’.
Using such navigation, ORP ‘Orzeł’ operated in the Baltic. However, she had no chance of success. The Germans intensified their patrols, although officially they had long claimed to have sunk at least four Polish submarines. However, this was only propaganda. In fact, knowing of the presence of a Polish ship in Baltic waters, they limited the activities of their large vessels. Similarly, an attempt was made to smear the Polish crew by accusing them of murdering two Estonian guards. The German message was further reported even by the British media, so Capt Grudziński decided to disembark the two Estonian sailors off the coast of Gotland, giving them provisions, money for their return and a letter explaining the whole situation.
In early October, ‘Orzeł’s’ situation was difficult. The last defending Polish vessels had capitulated, and the health of the sailors on the ship itself was failing and there was a shortage of fresh water. The vessel’s technical condition was also not very good: hitting the breakwater and subsequently becoming stuck in the shallows several times had its consequences. Therefore, on 7 October, the decision was taken to proceed to the UK. This decision was in line with the Fleet Command’s directives of 14 September, which ordered each Polish submarine, having exhausted its options, to either break through to England or proceed to Sweden. Crossing the Sound, however, was not straightforward. The crew did not have maps, so 2Lt Mokrski created two other documents: a map of the crossing and an orientation sketch of the route. The passage itself took quite a long time, as ‘Orzeł’ took cover several times from ships appearing on the horizon. Moreover, the commander was still hoping to sink some German vessel or warship. Therefore, it was not until 12 October that the Polish ship proceeded through the North Sea to the Scottish coast. A damaged radio and lack of knowledge of the location of English minefields remained a problem. In addition, at any moment, an unidentified ship could be taken by the Royal Navy for an enemy vessel. Luckily, the ship managed to reach the coast and, after establishing communication, with the help of the destroyer HMS ‘Valorous’, arrived at the Rosyth base on 14 October.
‘Orzeł’s’ Baltic odyssey was a success and her achievements are forever etched in the annals of history and warfare. One English officer commented on the affair as follows: ‘their spirit is magnificent, and what they accomplished may be placed on a par with the famous deeds of the World War’.
Author: Daniel Czerwiński – PhD, employee of the History Research Office of Institute of National Remembrance
Translation: Mikołaj Sekrecki
