‘The greatest adventure story to come out of the war’

Today we look at the Polish submarine Orzeł (Eagle), whose gutsy & brilliantly executed break-out Churchill called ‘the greatest adventure story to come out of the war’.

‘Originally designed to be used against Soviet shipping, the Orzeł went into action against the Kriegsmarine in Sept 1939. As the Germans restricted ship traffic in the war zone, Orzeł… had poor hunting. She evaded German destroyers & aircraft, but mechanical problems & the illness of her captain forced the submarine to seek refuge in the neutral harbor of Tallinn, Estonia…

‘Under pressure from Germany, the Estonians illegally interned the sub. The crew was placed under armed guard. It was stripped of its main weapons, navigational equipment, & charts. At 3am on 17 Sept, Orzeł’s second-in-command Lt Commander Jan Gruzinski led the crew in an escape. They overpowered the guards, disabled harbor searchlights, freed the sub from its moorings & slipped out of the harbor.

‘In one of the most daring adventures of the war, Orzeł escaped to England. The sub hid on the seabed by day to avoid German & Soviet patrols. Without any charts or equipment Gruzinski navigated using the stars & dead reckoning. Orzeł stopped briefly at the Swedish isle of Gotland to release the captive Estonian guards & then slipped through the Danish straits, avoiding German ships & aircraft.

‘By early 1940, Orzeł was on active patrol with British submarines in the North Sea. On the morning of 8 April, she was cruising south of the Norwegian coast… when Gruzinski spotted the German merchant ship Rio de Janeiro. Orzeł surfaced & ordered the ship to heave to, but the merchant vessel sped up in response. Orzeł fired 2 torpedoes, one of which hit the Rio de Janeiro, breaking her back. In minutes, the deck of the “innocent” merchant ship was swarming with German soldiers heading for the lifeboats. By sheer chance, the Polish sub had sunk one of the first waves of the German invasion of Norway. Unfortunately, the Norwegian authorities failed to react… until a full-scale invasion was underway.

‘In June 1940, Orzeł went on patrol… & never returned. It is believed she ran into a mine. She was lost with all hands.’

~ John Radzilski