On 13th-15 March1941, she took part in the
defence of Clydebank against Luftwaffe air raids, as she happened to be undergoing repairs in John Brown's shipyard. Many people remembered
that she put up a terrific barrage on the first night, which may have caused
the shipyard to get off comparatively lightly. A memorial to the crew of the
ship was later erected in Clydebank.
In May 1941 she was escorting
convoy WS-8B, along with four Royal Navy destroyers, when they were ordered
to leave the convoy to take part in the pursuit of the German battleship Bismarck. Piorun took part, along with the British destroyers,
in the shadowing of and torpedo attacks on the Bismarck the night before she was sunk, and
at one point they had an exchange of fire for half an hour. According to one report
(detailed at the Auschwitz I
exhibition, Oświęcim,
Poland), Plawski transmitted the message "I am a Pole"
before commencing fire on the Bismarck.
Piorun was very low on fuel, so she was
ordered home before the Bismarck
was sunk.
At the start of hostilitiesOrzeł
was on patrol in her designated sector of the Baltic Sea.
Unable to return to the Polish naval bases at Gdynia or Hel,
Orzeł had to make its way into a neutral
port to offload its sick captain. The crew chose to go to Tallinn, Estonia on 14 September1939. At the insistence of
Germany,
the Estonian authorities interned the crew, confiscated the maps and started to
dismantle the armament. The crew decided to escape with their boat and make the
perilous journey to England.
Under the new command of its former executive officer, Lt.Cdr.Jan GrudzinskiVMDSO, Orzeł
escaped on September 18
with two Estonian guards taken captive. The Estonian and German press covering
the Orzeł incident declared the two captured guards
dead, yet the new captain carried them to Swedish shores and provided them with money and food for their
safe return home, saying that if one is returning from the underworld he should
travel first class only. Estonia's
lack of will and/or incapability to disarm and intern the crew caused Soviet
Union to accuse Estonia of
"helping them escape" and claim that Estonia was not neutral. The Orzeł incident was used by the Soviet Union to
justify the annexation of Estonia.
Scotland
Without maps or most of her
navigation equipment, Orzeł remained in
the Baltic Sea and the crew decided to look
for some German ships to sink. No ships were sunk, but Orzeł
remained in the Baltic Sea long after all
pockets of resistance on Polish territory were conquered by the Nazis. She
evaded the numerous Kriegsmarine ships hunting for her, and made it to Rosyth
in Scotland on 14 October, where she was
subsequently based.
Norwegian
Campaign
After refitting and rest, Orzeł went immediately on patrol. Near the
small harbor town of Lillesand in southern Norway, she sank the 5,261 ton
clandestine German troop transportRio de Janeiro[1]
on April 8, 1940, killing hundreds of
German troops intended for the invasion of Norway[2].
Rio de Janeiro was on her way to Bergen
in order to take part in the initial landings of Operation Weserübung
- the invasion of Norway
and opening move of the Norwegian Campaign.
Orzeł was lost with all hands on the next
patrol somewhere in the North Sea,
in late May - early June 1940.
The boat was built by the Sudomekh Shipyard in Leningrad
(currently New Admirality Shipyard in St.
Petersburg). It was commissioned on April 29, 1986 in Riga. On June 13 of the same year
it was transferred to Gdynia where on June 21 it was christened. It was assigned to the 3rd Flotilla
based in Gdynia,
where it currently serves under kmdrppor. AndrzejOgrodnik.
Garland was laid down August 22, 1934 by the
Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company, Limited, at Govan
in Scotland and launched on
24 October 1935. After the final tests the ship was delivered to the Royal Navy
on March 3, 1936 and entered the service under the name of HMS Garland.
Initially a part of the Atlantic Fleet, later she was moved to Malta, where she served in
the Mediterranean
Fleet. Used mostly in the role of a convoy escort, she was rearmed in 1940 to
better serve that purpose. The anti-submarine and anti-air armament was added
at the cost of fewer main artillery guns. Shortly before the refurbishment, on
May 3, 1940 inMalta
she was transferred to the Polish Navy as a replacement for the Polish
ships lost in British service.
Initially it was planned to
rename the ship to a new, Polish name. However, the Polish Navy decided to keep
the British name as a sign of courtesy, as Garland was the oldest known name of a
British warship. After a short period of training of a new Polish crew, the ship
was attached to the British 14th Destroyer Flotilla and took part in various
convoys in the Mediterranean. On June 28,
1940, Garland took part in a naval battle
at the shores of Calabria, where it assisted in sinking of Italian
destroyer Espero. During
one of the convoy escort missions between Gibraltar and Alexandria, the ship was attacked by Italian bombers and
damaged by a bomb. The camshaft was broken by a close miss and the ship's
engines stopped, but the anti-air artillery repelled the attack and Garland was safely delivered back to Gibraltar.
In September 1940 Garland was moved to Great
Britain and joined up with the other Polish destroyers (Burza
and Błyskawica) and took part in numerous patrol
duties on the English
Channel and the North Sea. In July 1941 it took part in the
Allied landing on Spitsbergen. After that, in September, she joined ORP Piorun
in Operation
Halberd, escorting a large convoy to Malta. In the winter she was again
moved to the British Isles, from where she escorted numerous Atlantic and Arctic convoys. She especially distinguished herself
during the convoy PQ-16
to Murmansk
between May 25–27, 1942, fighting all day against enemy aircraft, with the loss
of 25 killed and 43 wounded. Upon her return to the UK,
she was moved to Greenock
shipyard, where she was repaired and refurbished. After that she returned to
her previous role of a convoy escort and in late 1943 took part in a British
landing on Azores,
where allied naval bases were established. In 1944 she was modified as destroyer
escort: her armament was reduced to two 120 mm guns, and a
Hedgehog
was added.
From there the ship operated at
the western shores of Africa and in the spring she returned to the
Mediterranean, where she took part in the Operation
Dragoon, that is the Allied landing in Southern
France. After that, she was used in anti-submarine operations in
the Mediterranean. On September 19 1944 she
took decisive part in sinking U-407. In October 1944 she supported the
Allied landing in Greece and
the following month she was withdrawn to Great Britain. Until the end of World War II
she defended the Western Approaches against the German U-Boots. After the war
the ship took part in sinking of German U-Boots captured by the Polish 1st Armoured
Division in the port
of Wilhelmshaven. On September 24, 1946, she was
decommissioned and returned to the Royal Navy.
During her service in the Polish
Navy she traversed 217,000 nautical miles
(402,000 km/250,000 mi). She sank one German U-Boot and damaged
additional 2 (one of them presumably sunk), downed 3 enemy
planes and took part in sinking of two large Italian ships. It also damaged 3
additional surface vessels.
On November 14, 1946 she was
decommissioned by the Royal Navy and sold to the Royal
Netherlands Navy. After a refurbishment she was commissioned in 1949
and renamed to HNLMS Marnix. She served as an artillery school ship and
later was reclassified as a frigate.
Decommissioned in 1964, she was scrapped in Antwerp four years later. It is to be noted that Garland was one of only
two ships of the G class destroyers to survive the war. The other, HMS Griffin,
served in the Royal Canadian Navy.
