ORP Orzeł was an Orzeł class submarine of the Polish Navy that served during WWII.
The Grom-class destroyers were two destroyers, built for the Polish Navy by the British company of J. Samuel White, Cowes. They were laid down in 1935 and commissioned in 1937. The two Groms were some of the fastest and most heavily armed destroyers of World War II.
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.
Józef Unrug was a Polish admiral who helped establish Poland's navy after World War I. During the opening stages of World War II, he served as the Polish Navy's commander-in-chief. As a German POW, he refused all German offers to change sides and was incarcerated in several Oflags, including Colditz Castle. He stayed in exile after the war in the United Kingdom, Morocco and France where he died and was buried. In September 2018 he was posthumously promoted in the rank of Admiral of the fleet by the President of Poland. After 45 years his remains, along with those of his wife Zofia, were exhumed from Montrésor and taken in October 2018 to his final resting place in Gdynia, Poland.
The Battle of Danzig Bay took place on 1 September 1939, at the beginning of the invasion of Poland, when Polish Navy warships were attacked by German Luftwaffe aircraft in Gdańsk Bay. It was the first naval-air battle of World War II.
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 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 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.
Jerzy Włodzimierz Świrski was a Polish vice admiral and officer in the Russian Imperial Navy and later the Polish Navy. As Chief of the Polish Naval Command (1925-1947), he was a member of an elite group of high ranking Polish naval officers from foreign navies who became founder members of the re-established naval forces of the newly independent Poland after World War I. During World War II, Polish naval forces under his command, were embedded with the Royal Navy and contributed significantly to the success of Britain's maritime war effort. He notably fell out with Poland's war time Prime Minister-in-exile, General Sikorski, but was backed by the British and survived in post. He was appointed an Honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath.
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.
The 8th Coastal Defense Flotilla (Polish: 8 Flotylla Obrony Wybrzeża also known as 8th Coastal Defense Flotilla Vice admiral Kazimierz Porębski, a Polish navy fleet of coastal defense ships based in Świnoujście, one of the three naval groups of the Navy. The flotilla was established in 1965 at the main base of the Navy, previously the Szczecin Coastal Area. From January 1, 2014, the Flotilla was subordinated to the Armed Forces General Command.
The Special Troops Command is the special forces command of the Polish Armed Forces. The command was formed in 2007 and is the fourth military branch of the SZ RP.
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.
ORP Ślązak (241) is an offshore patrol vessel of the Polish Navy, formerly known as Gawron-class corvette. The ship is named Ślązak. It is a licence variant of the MEKO A-100 project developed by Blohm + Voss.
Bolesław Romanowski was a submarine commander of the Polish Navy during World War II.
Jerzy Karol Koziołkowski was a submarine commander of the Polish Navy during World War II.
Bogusław Dionizy Krawczyk was a submarine commander of the Polish Navy during World War II.
ORP Sęp, formerly HNoMS Skolpen(S306), was one of the four Kobben-Class Submarines in service with the Polish Navy, originally serving with the Royal Norwegian Navy.
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