ORP Orzeł was an Orzeł class submarine of the Polish Navy that served during WWII.
A submarine chaser or subchaser is a small naval vessel that is specifically intended for anti-submarine warfare. Many of the American submarine chasers used in World War I found their way to Allied nations by way of Lend-Lease in World War II.
The Baltic Fleet is the fleet of the Russian Navy in the Baltic Sea.
The Orzeł incident occurred at the beginning of World War II in September 1939, when the interned Polish submarine ORP Orzeł escaped from Tallinn, in neutral Estonia, to the United Kingdom. Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union used the incident as one of the pretexts to justify its eventual military invasion and occupation of Estonia in June 1940.
The Baltic Sea campaigns were conducted by Axis and Allied naval forces in the Baltic Sea, the Gulf of Bothnia, the Gulf of Finland and the connected lakes Ladoga and Onega on the Eastern Front of World War II. After early fighting between Polish and German forces, the main combatants were the Kriegsmarine and the Soviet Navy, with Finland supporting the Germans until 1944 and the Soviets thereafter. The Swedish Navy and merchant fleet played important roles, and the British Royal Navy planned Operation Catherine for control of the Baltic Sea and its exit choke point into the North Sea.
The Estonian Navy are the unified naval forces among the Estonian Defence Forces.
The M-class submarines, also Malyutka class, were a class of small, single-, or 1½-hulled submarines built in the Soviet Union and used during World War II. The submarines were built in sections so they could easily be transported by rail. The production was centered in the Gorky Shipyard on the Volga River, after which the sections were transported by railway to Leningrad for assembly and fitting out. This was the first use of welding on Soviet submarines.
A British submarine flotilla operated in the Baltic Sea for three years during the First World War. The squadron of nine submarines was attached to the Russian Baltic Fleet. The main task of the flotilla was to prevent the import of iron ore from Sweden to Imperial Germany. The success of the flotilla also forced the German Navy in the Baltic to keep to their bases and denied the German High Seas Fleet a training ground. The flotilla was based in Reval (Tallinn), and for most of its career commanded by Captain Francis Cromie.
HMS L55 was a British L class submarine built by Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company, Govan, Clyde. She was laid down on 21 September 1917 and was commissioned on 19 December 1918.
The American Holland-class submarines, also AG class or A class, were Holland 602 type submarines used by the Imperial Russian and Soviet Navies in the early 20th century. The small submarines participated in the World War I Baltic Sea and Black Sea theatres and a handful of them also saw action during World War II.
The British campaign in the Baltic 1918–1919 was a part of the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War. The codename of the Royal Navy campaign was Operation Red Trek. The intervention played a key role in enabling the establishment of the independent states of Estonia and Latvia. It failed to secure the control of Petrograd by White Russian forces, which was one of the main goals of the campaign.
EML Lembit is one of two Kalev-class mine-laying submarines built for the Republic of Estonia before World War II, and is now a museum ship in Tallinn. She was launched in 1936 at Vickers-Armstrongs, Barrow-in-Furness, and served in the Estonian Navy and the Soviet Navy. Until she was hauled out on 21 May 2011, Lembit was the oldest submarine still afloat in the world. Her sister ship, Kalev, was sunk in October 1941. Lembit is named for Lembitu, an Estonian ruler who resisted the Livonian Crusades.
EML Kalev was one of two submarines of the Republic of Estonia launched in 1936 at Vickers and Armstrongs Ltd. in England. Her sister, Lembit, survived the Second World War.
EMLKalev (M414) was a Frauenlob-class minesweeper of the Estonian Navy, which belonged to the Mineships Division.
Two years after the end of the Estonian War of Independence (1918-1920), the Estonian Army consisted of 3 field divisions and a number of small independent battalions and companies (1922).
The Estonian Maritime Museum is located in the Fat Margaret tower in the old town of Tallinn. The museum presents the history of ships and navigation in Estonia and related to Estonia. Other parts of the Maritime Museum are the mine museum and the Seaplane Harbour museum where ships are presented. The museum claims to be one of the largest museums in Estonia and the most popular.
Suur Tõll is an Estonian steam-powered icebreaker preserved in the Estonian Maritime Museum in Tallinn. She was originally built for the Russian Empire in 1914 by AG Vulcan in Stettin, Germany, as Tsar Mikhail Feodorovich. In 1917, she was taken over by the Bolsheviks and renamed Volynets. However, in 1918 she was captured by Finland and served as Wäinämöinen until 1922, when she was handed over to Estonia according to the Treaty of Tartu and renamed Suur Tõll. When Estonia was occupied by the Soviet Union in 1940, the icebreaker rejoined the Soviet fleet and was again named Volynets. She remained in service until 1985.
The Seaplane Harbour is a maritime museum in Tallinn, Estonia, which opened in spring 2012. The museum is part of the Estonian Maritime Museum.
The Soviet submarine Baltic Sea campaign in 1941 was launched by the Soviet Navy at the early stage of Operation Barbarossa. The offensive was hampered by the quick German ground advance and the retreat of Soviet naval vessels from the main Baltic harbors.
