ORP Sokół
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.jpg/300px-ORP_Sokol_(N97).jpg) Polish U class submarine ORP Sokół as seen in Malta, possibly in 1943 |
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| Career (United Kingdom) |  |
|---|---|
| Name: | HMS Urchin |
| Builder: | Vickers Armstrong, Barrow-in-Furness |
| Laid down: | 9 December 1939 |
| Launched: | September 30, 1940 |
| Recommissioned: | August 3, 1946 |
| Decommissioned: | December 1948 |
| Fate: | Scrapped September 1949 |
| Career |  |
| Name: | ORP Sokół |
| Commissioned: | January 19, 1941 |
| Decommissioned: | returned to Royal Navy July 27, 1945 |
| Fate: | scrapped 1949 |
| General characteristics | |
| Displacement: |
Surfaced - 540 tons standard, 630 tons full load Submerged - 730 tons |
| Length: | 58.22 m (191 ft) |
| Beam: | 4.90 m (16 ft 1 in) |
| Draught: | 4.62 m (15 ft 2 in) |
| Propulsion: |
2 shaft diesel-electric |
| Speed: |
11.25 knots (20.8 km/h) max surfaced 10 knots (19 km/h) max submerged |
| Complement: | 27-31 |
| Armament: |
4 bow internal 21-inch (533 mm) torpedo tubes - 8 - 10 torpedoes 1 - 3-inch (76 mm) gun |
| Motto: |  |
- For other ships of the Polish Navy named ORP Sokół see: ORP Sokół (disambiguation)
ORP Sokół (Falcon) was a U-class submarine (formerly HMS Urchin (N97)) built by Vickers-Armstrong at Barrow-in-Furness. Shortly after launching in September 1940 she was to be commissioned by the Royal Navy as HMS Urchin, but instead was leased to the Polish Navy due to a lack of experienced submarine crews. A sister boat to Dzik, both boats operated in the Mediterranean from Malta, where they became known as the Terrible Twins.
[edit] Career
Shortly after her trials, the boat was handed to her Polish crew, in accordance with the Polish-British Military Alliance and amendments of November 18, 1939 and December 3, 1940. On January 19, 1941 the Polish banner was raised and the boat, commanded by Cmdr. Borys Karnicki, was moved to Portsmouth. There she spent half a year patrolling the Bay of Biscay off the French port of Brest. In September she was moved to Malta, where she was attached to the 10th Submarine Flotilla. She took part in the naval runs on the Italian ports of Taranto and Naples. She also escorted numerous convoys in the Mediterranean. On October 28 of that year, the ORP Sokół achieved her first victory by heavily damaging the Italian auxiliary cruiser Citta di Palermo. On November 2 in the Gulf of Naples she sank the 2,469 BRT transport ship Balilla, with her sister HMS Utmost. On November 19 of the same year, she forced the anti-submarine nets and entered the port of Navarino, where she damaged the Italian destroyer Aviere. She was attacked by Italian torpedo boats and destroyers, but all of the depth charges missed and the ORP Sokół managed to escape from the harbour, sinking an additional transport steamer (5,600 BRT) with three torpedoes. On February 12, 1942 she boarded and then sank the Italian wooden merchant schooner Giuseppina (362 BRT) in the Gulf of Gabes, one of the last sailing ships to be sunk during the war.
On April 17, while in the port of Malta, she was heavily damaged by a German air raid and was forced to return to the shipyard in Blyth, to receive repairs. By mid-1943 she had returned to the Mediterranean, where she continued to harass enemy shipment off the coasts of Italy, Northern Africa and in the Adriatic. On September 12 she rammed and sank the fishing vessel Meattini (36 BRT). She took part in the allied blockade of the naval bases in Naples and Pula. Off the coast of the latter port, transferred by the Italians to Nazi Germany, ORP Sokół sunk a munitions transport (probably the 7,095 BRT SS Eridania) and three days afterwards on November 11 the Italian schooner Argentina (64 BRT). Between November 4, 1943 and February 25, 1944, she was operating in the Aegean from the naval base in Beirut. Among the ships sunk in that period were two transport ships, four schooners and one cutter. In March of 1944 both of the Terrible Twins left Malta for Great Britain where they were attached to the Dundee-based 9th submarine flotilla. After an additional four patrols off the coast of Norway, in the spring of 1945 she was designated as a training ship and was used by the Royal Air Force for training naval bomber pilots. She was returned to the Royal Navy on the 27 July 1945, where she served for a further four years before being scrapped.
Altogether, during her wartime service the ORP Sokół sank or damaged 19 enemy vessels of ca. 55,000 BRT altogether. All of the commanding officers of the boat, (Lt.Cmdr. Borys Karnicki, Lt.Cmdr. Jerzy Koziołkowski and Cpt. Tadeusz Bernas) were awarded the Virtuti Militari.
[edit] References
- Submarines, War Beneath The Waves, From 1776 To The Present Day, by Robert Hutchinson
- Colledge, J. J. and Warlow, Ben (2006). Ships of the Royal Navy: the complete record of all fighting ships of the Royal Navy, Rev. ed., London: Chatham. ISBN 9781861762818. OCLC 67375475.
ORP Sokol, Uboot.net
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