The German aircraft carrier Graf Zeppelin was the lead ship in a class of two carriers of the same name ordered by the Kriegsmarine of Nazi Germany. She was the only aircraft carrier launched by Germany and represented part of the Kriegsmarine's attempt to create a well-balanced oceangoing fleet, capable of projecting German naval power far beyond the narrow confines of the Baltic and North Seas. The carrier would have had a complement of 42 fighters and dive bombers.
ORP Błyskawica (Lightning) is a Grom-class destroyer which served in the Polish Navy during World War II. It 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 Orzeł was the lead ship of her class of submarines serving in the Polish Navy during World War II. Her name means "Eagle" in Polish. The boat is best known for the Orzeł incident, her escape from internment in neutral Estonia during the early stages of the Second World War.
ORP Orzeł a Polish Navy submarine of the Project 613 (Whiskey-class). She was built in the Soviet Union as S-265 and was commissioned by the Polish Navy in 1962. She served under the pennant number 292 and was decommissioned in 1983. It was one of the four Whiskey-class submarines operated by the Polish Navy, the other three being ORP Sokół (293), ORP Kondor (294) and ORP Bielik (295).
ORP Generał Kazimierz Pułaski is one of two Oliver Hazard Perry-class guided-missile frigates of the Polish Navy. Formerly serving in the United States Navy as the USS Clark (FFG-11), after her transfer to Poland she was named for Kazimierz Pułaski, who fought in both the War of the Bar Confederation in Poland and later the American Revolutionary War. As the USS Clark, she was the US Navy's fifth ship of the Oliver Hazard Perry class, and was named for Admiral Joseph James "Jocko" Clark (1893–1971). The ship is propelled by two General Electric LM-2500 gas turbines and two 350 horsepower (261 kW) electric drive auxiliary propulsion units. The Gen K. Pułaski is currently homeported at Gdynia (Oksywie).
ORP Dzik (Boar) was a U-class submarine built by Vickers-Armstrong at Barrow-in-Furness. She was laid down on 30 December 1941 as P-52 for the Royal Navy, but was transferred to the Polish Navy during construction. Launched on November 11, 1942, ORP Dzik was commissioned into the Polish Navy on December 12, 1942. Her name meant "Wild Boar" in Polish.
ORP Krakowiak was a British Type II Hunt-class destroyer escort, used by the Polish Navy during World War II. Initially built for the Royal Navy, it bore the name of HMS Silverton during British use.
HMS Danae was the lead ship of the Danae-class cruisers, serving with the Royal Navy between the world wars and with the Polish Navy during the latter part of World War II as ORP Conrad.
MS Jan Heweliusz was a Norwegian-built Polish ferry named after astronomer Johannes Hevelius that served on the route Ystad-Świnoujście. It was built in Norway in 1977 and was owned by Polish Ocean Lines and operated by its subsidiary company Euroafrica Shipping Lines. In the early hours of 14 January 1993 it capsized and sank in 27 metres of water off Cape Arcona on the coast of Rügen in the Baltic Sea while sailing toward Ystad with 64 passengers and crew. The accident claimed the lives of 20 crewmen and 35 passengers. 10 bodies were never found. Nine people were rescued. The sinking of Jan Heweliusz is the most deadly peacetime maritime disaster involving a Polish ship.
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.
ORP Heweliusz is a survey ship of the Polish Navy of the Projekt 874 class, known as modified Finik class in NATO code. She was launched on 11 September 1981 and commissioned on 27 November 1982.
ORP Ślązak was a World War II Hunt-class destroyer. Initially laid down in 1940 for the Royal Navy as HMS Bedale, in 1942 she was commissioned by the Polish Navy.
Henryk Arctowski, born Henryk Artzt, was a Polish scientist and explorer. Living in exile for a large part of his life, he was one of the first persons to winter in Antarctica and became an internationally renowned meteorologist. He was instrumental in restoring Polish independence after the First World War. Several geographical features, the Henryk Arctowski Polish Antarctic Station and a medal of the National Academy of Sciences are named in his honor.
The Graf Zeppelin-class aircraft carriers were four German Kriegsmarine aircraft carriers planned in the mid-1930s by Grand Admiral Erich Raeder as part of the Plan Z rearmament program after Germany and Great Britain signed the Anglo-German Naval Agreement. They were planned after a thorough study of Japanese carrier designs. German naval architects ran into difficulties due to lack of experience in building such vessels, the situational realities of carrier operations in the North Sea and the lack of overall clarity in the ships' mission objectives.
The Gawron class or Projekt 621 was a planned class of multipurpose corvettes ordered by Polish Navy. The Gawron class was a variant of the MEKO A-100 project developed by the Blohm + Voss shipyard in Germany. Construction of the first ship of the class started in 2001. The project was terminated in February 2012 but in October 2013 a contract was signed to complete the existing hull as a patrol ship by 2016. On 2 July 2015, ORP Ślązak was christened and launched, and on 28 November 2019, ORP Ślązak was officially commissioned into the Polish Navy.
ORP Rybitwa was a Jaskółka-class minesweeper of the Polish Navy at the outset of World War II. Rybitwa participated in the defence of Poland during the Nazi German invasion of 1939. The ship was damaged by a German bomb on 14 September 1939. The ship was later captured by the Germans, but returned to serve under the Polish flag after the War.
The Polish Navy is a military branch of the Polish Armed Forces responsible for naval operations. The Polish Navy consists of 48 ships and about 12,000 commissioned and enlisted personnel. The traditional ship prefix in the Polish Navy is ORP.
Poland
