ORP Błyskawica (Lightning) is a Grom-class destroyer which served in the Polish Navy during World War II. She is the only Polish Navy ship to have been decorated with the Virtuti Militari, Poland's highest military order for gallantry, and in 2012 was given the Pro Memoria Medal. Błyskawica is preserved as a museum ship in Gdynia and is the oldest preserved destroyer in the world. Błyskawica is moored next to the Dar Pomorza.
ORP Grom was the lead ship of her class of destroyers serving in the Polish Navy during World War II. She was named after the Polish word for Thunderbolt, while her sister ship ORP Błyskawica translates to lightning.
ORP Gryf was a large Polish Navy minelayer, sunk during the 1939 German invasion of Poland. She was one of two large Polish ships that were not evacuated to Great Britain during Operation Peking prior to the outbreak of the Polish Defensive War. She was sunk in Hel harbour on 3 September 1939 during the opening stage of World War II.
ORP Piorun was an N-class destroyer operated by the Polish Navy in World War II. The word piorun is Polish for "Thunderbolt". Ordered by the Royal Navy in 1939, the ship was laid down as HMS Nerissa before being loaned to the Poles in October 1940 while still under construction.
ORP Burza was a Wicher-class destroyer of the Polish Navy which saw action in World War II.
ORP Wicher, the lead ship of the Wicher class, was a Polish Navy destroyer. She saw combat in the Invasion of Poland, which began World War II in Europe. She was the flagship of the Polish Navy, sunk by German bombers on 3 September 1939.
This article details the order of battle of the Polish Navy prior to the outbreak of World War II and the Polish Defensive War of 1939. Following World War I, Poland's shoreline was relatively short and included no major seaports. In the 1920s and 1930s, such ports were built in Gdynia and Hel, and the Polish Navy underwent a modernisation program under the leadership of Counter-Admiral Józef Unrug and Vice-Admiral Jerzy Świrski. Ships were acquired from France, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom, and the navy was to be able to secure the Polish supply lines in case of a war against the Soviet Union. By September 1939 the Polish Navy consisted of 5 submarines, 4 destroyers, and various support vessels and mine-warfare ships.
The German destroyer Z1 Leberecht Maass was the lead ship of her class of four destroyers built for the German Navy during the mid-1930s. Completed in 1937, two years before the start of World War II, the ship served as a flagship and spent most of her time training, although she did participate in the occupation of Memel in early 1939.
At the outbreak of the Second World War Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine had 21 destroyers in service, while another one was just being completed. These 22 vessels – comprising 3 classes – had all been built in the 1930s, making them modern vessels. Including that final pre-war vessel, a further 19 were brought into service during the war and more were captured from opposing navies, including the Italian Navy after the Italian Armistice with the Allies in 1943.
The Peking Plan was an operation in which three destroyers of the Polish Navy, the Burza, Błyskawica, and Grom, were evacuated to the United Kingdom in late August and early September 1939. They were ordered to travel to British ports and assist the British Royal Navy in the event of a war with Nazi Germany. The plan was successful and allowed the ships to avoid certain destruction or capture in the German invasion.
The Wicher-class destroyers were a series of destroyers that served in the Polish Navy during World War II. Two ships of this class were built for the Second Polish Republic by Chantiers Navals Français during the late 1920s. They were modified versions of the Bourrasque-class destroyers built for the French Navy.
The Battle of Hel was a World War II engagement fought from 1 September to 2 October 1939 on the Hel Peninsula, of the Baltic Sea coast, between invading German forces and defending Polish units during the German invasion of Poland. The defense of the Hel Peninsula took place around the Hel Fortified Area, a system of Polish fortifications that had been constructed in the 1930s near the interwar border with the German Third Reich.
Ouragan was a Bourrasque-class destroyer built for the French Navy during the 1920s. During World War II, the destroyer began the war in service with the French Navy and was undergoing repairs at Brest during the invasion of France. The British Royal Navy towed the destroyer to the United Kingdom and commandeered the vessel following the French surrender in 1940. They transferred Ouragan to the Polish Navy which kept the destroyer in service for less than a year. In 1941, the Polish Navy transferred the destroyer to the Free French Naval Forces, which in turn, transferred Ouragan back to the Royal Navy in 1943. Ouragan saw no further action and was broken up for scrap in 1949.
The Soldati class were a group of destroyers built for the Regia Marina during World War II. The ships were named after military professions. There were two batches; twelve ships were built in 1938–1939, and a second batch of seven ships were ordered in 1940, although only five were completed.
The QF 4 inch Mk XVI gun was the standard British Commonwealth naval anti-aircraft and dual-purpose gun of World War II.
ORP Wicher was a Project 30bis destroyer, transferred to the People's Republic of Poland from the Soviet Union in 1958. She was built by the Zhdanov shipyard in Leningrad and originally commissioned into the Soviet Baltic Fleet as the Skoryy ("Rapid") in 1951, and transferred to Poland in 1958 together with a second ship, ORP Grom. The ship was decommissioned in 1975, and scrapped. One of the 130 mm guns is preserved in the Polish Navy Museum in Gdynia. Remainings of the scrapped vessel were sunk at the beach in Hel as breakwater, where they remain to this day.
The Polish Navy is the naval branch of the Polish Armed Forces. The Polish Navy consists of 46 ships and about 12,000 commissioned and enlisted personnel. The traditional ship prefix in the Polish Navy is ORP.
The improved Grom-class destroyers of 1939 were the third and fourth planned ships of the Grom class of destroyers ordered for the Polish Navy shortly before World War II. They were to be built in Poland, the first destroyers so constructed, and were to be named Huragan ("hurricane") and Orkan ("windstorm"), respectively. Their design included greater power and displacement than the first two ships of the class. Their construction was interrupted by the beginning of World War II and they were never completed.
Cyclone was a Bourrasque-class destroyer built for the French Navy during the 1920s. She saw service in the early months of World War II before being scuttled in June 1940 to prevent her capture by advancing German forces during the Battle of France.
Polish Navy