Battle of Gdańsk Bay
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Battle of the Gdańsk Bay took place on September 1, 1939, shortly after the invasion of Poland. It was the biggest naval battle of the campaign and one of the first naval battles of World War II. It was also one of the first battles in which naval units fought mostly against air forces.
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[edit] History
[edit] Eve of the battle
The Polish Navy of the Second Polish Republic (1919–39) was prepared mostly as means of supporting naval communications with France in case of a war with the Soviet Union. However, after it became apparent that the aggressive side would be Germany, most of modern Polish vessels were withdrawn from the Baltic Sea in what was called Operation Peking. The remaining forces, consisting of several modern submarines and smaller vessels were to execute two major naval operations, both aimed at disrupting the German naval movement in the area of the Gdańsk Bay and transit movement between Germany and East Prussia. All submarines were dispatched for their operational zones in the southern Baltic to take part in Operation Worek, an attempt to sink as many German ships as possible.
[edit] Battle
All the remaining surface vessels were to be dispatched from the naval base in Gdynia to Hel Peninsula, from where they were to start the so-called Operation Rurka. The plan was to lay an antiship mine barrier between Hel Peninsula and Danzig to prevent any enemy ship from entering the area.
At dusk ten Polish warships left Gdynia for Hel, located on the other side of the bay. There, the ships were to join with a number of torpedo boats and minelayers and start the minelaying operation. Among them were the destroyer ORP Wicher, mine-layer Gryf, minesweepers Jaskółka, Czapla, Żuraw, Czajka, Rybitwa and Mewa and gunboats Komendant Piłsudski and Generał Haller. While traversing the Gdańsk Bay, the flotilla was attacked by a group of 33 German warplanes, mostly Junkers Ju 87B Stuka dive bombers. The air raid was mostly unsuccessful and the Polish vessels suffered only minor losses. The backbone of the Polish flotilla, ORP Gryf with over 300 naval mines on board, remained unharmed.
However, soon after the first air raid was repelled, the German bombers returned. This time the losses were also minor and only minesweeper ORP Mewa was lightly damaged. However, the commanding officer of ORP Gryf, Cmdr. Stefan Kwiatkowski was killed by German machine gun fire. His executive officer, Lt. Cmdr. Wiktor Łomidze feared that his cargo of antiship mines (comprising over 33 tonnes of high explosives) was a danger to the ship and that if it were hit by a bomb, it would explode immediately. Because of that, he ordered all the mines to be disposed of in the sea.
[edit] After the battle
After successful defence against several consecutive air raids, the Polish flotilla arrived at Hel. However, since ORP Gryf lost all of its mines, the Operation Rurka had to be called off. The only destroyer, ORP Wicher, did not receive the orders calling off the operation and went straight to the pre-designed zone of operations to support the mine-layers. After waiting there for the whole night, its captain Lt. Cdr. Stefan de Walden encountered three German destroyers and decided to return to Hel Peninsula.
Both major vessels were there deprived of most of equipment and served as antiaircaft platforms in the Hel naval base.
