New beginnings: The Polish Navy 1918-1939

 The Second World War is one of the most talked and written about subjects in modern history with a massive impact on not only our popular memory but also on popular culture and yet there are so many facets that are forgotten about or have become obscured. 

One such facet is the Polish Navy which had an active role during the September 1939 but also played a part fighting with the British Royal Navy which played apart in countless operations including Narvik, Dunkirk, the Battle of the Atlantic, hunting Bismarck, D-day, the defence of Cowes and even the scuttling of the U-boats during Operation Deadlight.

The Polish navy was founded on 28th November 1918 by order of the Chief or State Jozef Pilsudski who placed Captain Bogumil Nowotny as the Chief of the Navy. 

This order gave some legitimacy to the previous orders of General Boleslaw Roja who commanded the Polish army in Galicia who, on 1st November, just four weeks previously, had ordered the former Austro-Hungarian river craft and monitors which were in Polish territories, to be concentrated at Krakow.

Poland had also managed to gain six of Germany's torpedo boats including the SMS V-105 and V-108

Humble beginnings - ORP Mazur & other Torpedo boats 

which had been under construction for the Dutch navy but when the First World War commenced they were taken over by the German Navy. They were christened ORP Mazur and Kaszub respectively in 1920 and 1921 despite the former being originally ceded to the Brazilian navy. There were also three A class coastal torpedo boats transferred in 1920 SMS A 59 (ORP Slazak), SMS A 64 (ORP Krakowiak) and SMS A 68 (ORP Kujawiak) and the A 80 (ORP Goral which was renamed Podhalanin in 1922).None of the German ships gained by Poland for coastal policing operations had any armament but it was a definite start.

Poland's big issue was that in 1918 it lacked any coastal ports as the lands and borders were still under discussion but following the Treaty of Versailles they had a new coastline which ran for 44.5 miles long from the Hel peninsula to Gdansk which also granted Poland the fishing ports of Hel and Puck neither of which were far from ideal war ports whilst because of the unsuitability of the ports Gdynia was allowed to be used for trading ships only. Further to this there were no ports that could house shipyards so that the Polish state could build its own larger vessels.

This did not stop an ambitious Ten Year Naval development plan being drawn up. This plan saw the acquirement of two battleships (no preference to dreadnought or pre-dreadnought but I'm of the opinion the latter would be easier to get hold of and serve the purpose quite well especially that at this stage the new Reichsmarine only maintained a handful of pre-dreadnoughts), six cruisers fifty four torpedo boats, forty five submarines minesweepers, auxiliaries, fleet aviation and more river based warships which is truly an unrealistic end game considering the military aims, the available facilities, actual maritime needs of the state and more importantly, finances which I'll outline below:

As the European political situation evolved it became clear that the main two possible enemies that would be faced by them would be Germany and Russia, her two neighbours. Both had used large armies in the past and with the lack of coastline it would mean that any attack on Poland would be mainly by land. So what was the point in funding an expensive navy? This is more than likely why the fledging navy did not appear in the Polish military planning in the 1920s. This was true of the Russo-Polish war of 1919-1921 which only saw the river monitors being used with some having to scuttle during a Russian advance, though they were refloated post war.

Germany, for their part, would more than likely want to take the Danzig corridor to unite East Prussia, the Free city of Danzig and Germany proper by a land campaign.

With no shipyards the Polish government had to look to other nations to build their vessels or the other option was to buy warships from the Allies. Britain and France had continued to maintain older, and in some cases, obsolete warships for secondary and tertiary roles or in far away corners of the globe to police distant waters. Come 1918 with the end of hostilities and these vessels are no longer needed and are being sold off for scrapping but were also an excellent possible source for a new nation to gain any ships possible - especially as claims on other German or Austro-Hungarian ships were ignored by the other powers during the Treaty of Versailles negotiations. 

The answer to Poland's naval needs came from France who saw the fledgling country as a great economic investment opportunity as well as a possible ally against a resurgent Germany with Poland taking Russia's place on the Eastern border. France's economic investment could be used to sure up Polish currency which was comparatively weak compared to the other Nations which meant they could not afford the second hand warships being sold off. The French also replaced the lackluster British Naval mission and began training and instruction of the embryonic Polish force into the skills they would need for war as well as Naval traditions and bureaucracy.

Poland might also use French money to fund a Minimum plan which was designed around the limited needs of Polish Naval planning. 

With Poland's sea board being so small and effectively boxed into the Baltic with the only access policed the Germans in the Kattegat and with Russian forces to the East a force of expensive battleships seemed pointless as was a fleet of ocean going cruisers to police colonies and far off waters Poland didn't have or need at this stage so a more localised police or defence force would be needed. The 1921-23 plan saw Poland planning to purchase one light cruiser, four destroyers, six minesweepers, twelve torpedo boats and  two submarines which although ambitious was more realistic than the Ten year plan but could still be seen as ambitious considering the other areas that required investment around the country like infrastructure or other more important branches of the military like the army.. 

Slowly expansion began with the former Imperial Russian Filn class gunboats ORP General Haller

ORP Baltyk in the 1930s

andKomendant Pilsudski being bought from the slips in Finland but the fluctuating financial situations through 1922 and 1923 saw further developments put on hold until a new plan for  a navy based around two cruisers, six destroyers and twelve each of torpedo boats and submarines which was supported by the French but the Polish Ministry of Finance was still balking at the scheme and so reduced it even further for the programme 1925-28. An agreement was struck with France in 1924 and in 1925 the destroyers ORP Wicher and Burza were laid down in French shipyards. They would be followed by the Wilk class submarines Wilk, Rys and Zbik all laid down in 1927. They also acquired the veteran Protected cruiser D'Enrecasteaux as the depot ship and rechristened Baltyk in 1927.

The 1929 Wall Street crash further tampered with Naval expansion plans across the globe and hopes for a new War port, two destroyers, five submarines (and tender vessel), four minesweepers and a minelayer again looked dubious but orders were placed with the British to build three destroyers, the Dutch two submarines and four minesweepers were built in Poland. At the same time the Slawomir Czerwubski was bought to serve as the Submarine's tenders.

As the rise of Germany became apparent and with the growing threat of invasion the Polish government again looked at building more warships over a ten to twelve year period which would see an increase of the fleet's size over a six year plan between 1936 and 1942 taking the number of destroyers to eight with twelve submarines , one minelayer and twelve minesweepers supported by ten torpedo boats but this was streamlined into a ten year plan for 1946 for one Cruiser, twelve  destroyers and twenty one submarines supported by other ships. 

However as the inevitability of war loomed the Commander of the Polish Surface fleet, Counter Admiral Jozef Unrug, believed that a direct naval campaign against the numerically superior and heavier armed Kriegsmarine would be pointless so began to favour other options that included trying to cause maximum damage for minimal loss, a hit and fade campaign and holding off as long as possible with the forces he had available but more on those later.

6th Battalion Royal West Kents at Ovillers on the Somme 3/7/1916

In the small hours of 3 July 1916 the 6^th Battalion of the Royal West Kent regiment were roused and stood ready to advance across No Man’s land. They had been in reserve as part of 12^th Division on 1^st July but moved up to replace 8^th Division in the line on the night of ½ July with orders to attack the following night.

   The Kentish men were entrenched to the west of the ruin of Ovillers with two German salients

running North to south at Ovillers and La Boisselle in front of them. Orders had to come down to cut the German salients off from the main line. To the right of the Kents 35 Brigade were attacking eastward and to the right of them a larger thrust towards Mametz wood with the aim being for the attacks linking and cutting of the two garrisons.

   The task before the Kent already had some complications. The Germans wire belt in front of them ran, uncut, for 300 yards and the northernmost German position had a larger wire belt. There was no advancing force to their left which left their flank exposed to enfilading fire but the Royal Fusiliers were ordered to give covering fire with rifles and machine guns whilst a smoke screen was deployed.

   The plan of attack was simple. A Company (Captain Barnett) and C Company (Captain Hatton) were to be the first wave and take the German first line advancing with A Company on the right and C Company on the left. Once they reached the line they were to bomb out the dugouts and spread out along the line until C Coy reached a Junction with a communications trench and erect a double block whilst A Coy moved left until the met with the 6^th Battalion of the Queen’s Surreys who were advancing at the same time.

   B Coy (Captain Harris) and D Coy (Captain Matthews) were to push through the German front line and assault the Second line some 300 yards further on whilst the 7^th East Surreys would take the third line beyond that.

   At 3:15 a.m. the British artillery fire ceased and the Kents dashed forward into the dark.The attack was met with heavy machine gun fire but not enough to turn the attack and both companies pressed on. On the left C Coy Lieutenants Montagu and Robert’s platoons drifted too far left and got entangled in the wire suffering heavy casualties from enemy fire which claimed both Lieutenants.

   Lieutenant Claude Coombs, a 21 year old native of Beckenham, was the first of C Coy to reach the

Lieutenant Coombs

German line after shooting one of the defenders who was lining up a shot at Captain Hatton, he began leading his bombing teams along the line. Captain Barnett was killed on arrival at the lines but his Company carried on regardless and began clearing the lines. In all 250 yards of German line were secured despite C Coy being hampered by the loss of specially selected bombers in Montagu and Robert’s platoons.

   Under heavy covering fire from A and C Coy the second wave advance but things had already begun to go wrong with the two companies being delayed by congestion in the British line and by the time they passed over the German front line the artillery barrage had already lifted on the second line. Unlike the front line which seemed to only have machine gunners in it the second line was more heavily manned and despite the covering fire given by A and C Coy the second wave came under withering fire. They were also struck by enfilading fire in the left flank. Captain Matthews tried to urge his men on but was shot after only a few yards. A young subaltern, who had recently joined the battalion from Rugby, Lieutenant Hugh Latimer, dashed forward and pushed his way through the wire and up to the German parapet cheering his men on and trying to show the way but he too fell with a bullet through the head. The attack soon petered out.

   The situation in the old German front line was now becoming tenuous with the failure of the second wave compounded by the advance of the Queen’s Surreys, who, along with the 6^th Battalion of the Buffs, had suffered heavy fire from the front and on both flanks as they advanced and had had to retire and take the line to the right of the Kents.

   As it was A and C Coy were cut off and unsupported. Attempts at rushing up reinforcements to resupply were met with deadly heavy fire with only a few handfuls of men arriving by jumping from shell hole to shell hole. A telephone cable was laid back to the British line but it was quickly cut and the surviving senior officer, Captain Hatton, had to rely on runners bearing messages but the enemy fire made this difficult but an order from the Colonel had arrived.

The Two Companies were to hold the line.

This would be easier said than done as the British artillery barrage had severely damaged the line, the Companies were cut off from reinforcement and were without support on the right and the strong point on the left not adequately established due to the shortage of bombers but the men set to their task with grit and bravery holding out for several hours.

   Sergeant Knight of C Coy dashed into No-man’s land to grab bombs from fallen comrades and despite drawing heavy fire, was able to bring two bags back to the line only to fall dead from a head wound. Lieutenant Cuthburt Buckle, a 24 year old American officer climbed up onto the parapet and despite repeated pleas and orders to get down, paced up and down directing his platoon’s fire on the enemy until he too was felled.

   As time passed ammunition and bombs dwindled whilst casualties rose. Hutton and his batman moved up and down the line taking ammunition and bombs from the casualties and redeploying them to the remaining bomb squads until the Captain was badly wounded at 7 a.m. during a German counter attack.

   The defences failed and hand fulls of men tried to make it back to the British line under fire from the pursuing Germans and from German artillery firing from Pozières.

   Of the 617 men to go into action, 375 men were casualties including three of the four company commanders killed and Hatton wounded and captured. In total 19 officers were casualties including Lieutenant Coombs who crawled, mortally wounded, through no man’s land only to die of gas gangrene in a hospital in Bolougne on 6^th July where he was buried. In a letter home a Lance Corporal wrote that Coombs "was one of the most daring and bravest officers we have ever had and I have often heard the remark passed by the men that they would trust themselves with him."

   The Battalion was to be reformed around Captain Dawson and the reserves and when 12 Division were withdrawn on the 9^th July they were sent to Vauchelles des Authoy.

The end of the Goliath

The night of the 12/13 May was much like any other with the Goliath, the Cornwallis and five Bulldog and Beagle patrolled near Du Tott’s battery, HMS Pincher sat mid channel and HMS Wolverine and Scorpion guarded the opposite side of the channel at Eren Keui bay.

HMS Goliath

destroyers taking up position in the mouth of the straits covering the French position at Kereves Dere whilst the destroyers HMS

   The weather was far from ideal as the night was particularly dark and moonless limiting visibility which was exacerbated by fog. The use of searchlights to aid in observation were prohibited as they would give away the positions of the battleships.  Ashmead Bartlett later recalled that “Many who had prophesied that, owing to the exposed position, a disaster would occur sooner rather than later” (1) The suspicion of attack was so high that the gun crews and lookouts aboard the Cornwallis had been warned to be extra vigilant against a night attack. At approximately 1:15 a.m. an unfamiliar torpedo boat loomed out of the darkness close to the Goliath. The duty quartermaster hesitated giving the order to fire on the strange vessel in case it was a friendly vessel, as was most likely considering the large volume of Allied shipping and with no sign of the Ottoman fleet. A signal was flashed over demanding the vessel identify itself but the reply that returned, although in English, made no sense. The crew began to react but were only able to fire off three rounds from a 25 pounder gun before the first torpedoes struck the helpless battleship.

   The unknown vessel was, in fact, the Ottoman torpedo boat Muavanet-i-Millet under the command of Senior Lieutenant Ayasofyali Ahmed Saffed and Kapitänleutnant Rudolf Firle who had persuaded the Naval Command to allow them to try a raid on the Allied fleet. The German-Turkish crew had left Constantinople on the night of the 12 May and used the inky darkness to their benefit and drifted down the straits and clinging as close to the shore as they could passing the Bulldog and Beagle completely undetected until they came across the exposed battleship and took careful aim.

The Muavanet-i-Millet

   The first torpedo struck the Goliath abreast of the fore turret and the second abeam her fore funnel and moments later the third struck close to the aft turret. With all surprise gone the Muavanet-i-Millet quickly turned for home and disappeared into the darkness with the destroyers HMS Scorpion and Wolverine in pursuit in a desperate gamble to cut off the Ottoman’s retreat.

   Following the impact of the torpedoes the sleeping crew were shaken from their bunks and hammocks. Wolstan Forrester joined the other Midshipman who were gathering on deck in their pyjamas as some of the ship’s Boys were led by a RNR Sub-lieutenant (probably Albert Lund) up a ladder from the gun room flat with the Reservist assuring them to remain calm and that they would all be saved.

   The Goliath began to list quite quickly to starboard and as Forester climbed up to the quarter deck he estimated it was at a five degree list so quickly made for the port side where a crowd was gathering.

   There was a certain amount of confusion as Able Seamen tried to launch boats but found the growing list prevented launching. Calls of “Boat ahoy!” drew the crowd’s attention to the inky blackness but no boats could be seen and the Commander was was urging a team of men to throw flotsam overboard but the list stopped them getting it over the portside and the ship’s fittings, such as the Captain’s hatch made it too difficult to go over the starboard side and the men gave it up as a bad job.

   The night air was suddenly filled with loud noises from deep within the vessel as she listed further and further over twenty degrees.
Inside the ship everything was not secured was sliding about and banging up against the bulkheads with a series of crashes. Crockery was smashing – boats falling out of their cruches – broken funnel guys swinging anainst the funnel casings. (2)

   As the situation rapidly broke down it was obvious the ship was lost and the voices of the gathered men calling for help quietened momentarily and through this the voice of an officer rang out loud and clear:
“Keep calm men, be British!”

   Then the vessel rapidly began to heal over again and the men on the Portside began to climb over the sides and jump into the water with the Commander jumping two seconds ahead of Forrester who hit his face on the side of the vessel on his fall of thirty feet into the water. On hitting the water Forrester was struck by another falling seaman who almost pulled him down but the young midshipman pulled himself free and swam fifty yards to safety to avoid the suction of the battleship as it made its final journey to the bottom of the straits.
I watched her last moments. The noise of crashing furniture and smashing crockery was continuous. Slowly her stern lifted until it was dimly outlined against the deep midnight sky. Slowly her bows slid further and further under until, with a final lurch, she turned completely over and disappeared bottom upwards in a mass of bubbles. (3)
Forrester made for the nearby HMS Cornwallis two and a half miles away worrying about sharks and listening to the shrieks and calls of other men in the water grow more and more infrequent. Having jettisoned his water logged pyjamas he made it onto a spar for a rest before once again plunging into the cold water but found that the current was pushing him off course and he couldn’t even get into the Cornwallis’ searchlight beams. He looked around for another vessel and was able to signal a rowboat but promptly fainted as soon as he was pulled aboard after all of his exertions. The Cornwallis was too far away and the current was too strong with only one man getting no nearer than two hundred yards away before they were picked up. The Goliath had also laid only a hundred yards from the shore but none of the crew were able to swim against the current to reach it.

   Following the torpedoing it took the surrounding ships vital moments to realise the situation. From the Cornwallis those on duty on the bridge believed that they had heard a heavy gun firing. As the cries of the men gathered on the Goliath’s deck reached them the first thought was it was exultant French soldiers cheering a victory, others were dulled bu the constant rifle fire from the trenches before it became clear that they were actually hearing “Ship Ahoy!”

   On the nearby HMS Majestic Petty Officer Cowie was shaken from his hammock by the explosions and burst out onto the deck as the ship’s boats were ordered away to search for survivors in the water. “The Goliath was gone, but in the water were struggling men and floating wreckage of every description” (4) The men on the deck stared helplessly into the darkness as the current washed the “struggling mass of humanity down upon us”.

   Rope, life belts and flotsam were thrown overboard for the men to cling to and Cowie, in absence of orders forbidding their use, brought the searchlights on to scour the dark and illuminate those in the water to help the lifeboats recover who they could. However those in the water tried to avoid the Majestic believing she was steaming towards them when in fact they were caught in the current and the old battleship was stationary.

   For the boats in the water the current was proving quite a problem with Signalman Beale of the Cornwallis recording that:
I never want to have a more heart rending job! It was awful while picking up one man to hear another not twenty yards away shouting “Picket Boat, Help! Quick! I’m nearly done!” when we knew that the current was sweeping him down stream into the darkness. (5)
Though he also noted that the men retained their sense of humour and that ten minutes after getting into the boat and getting a jumper or coat from one of their rescuers would soon make a joke about having only doing their washing just the day before. Another issue the lifeboats had was with the searchlights playing across the darkness stopping their eyes from adjusting to the darkness.
We had to work at a slow speed as our searchlights and those of other ships only served to make the darkness more terrible, and we were afraid of running down the men struggling in the water. (6)

      Admiral, Sir Rosalin Wemys had stood on the deck of the cruiser Eurayles, a great coat pulled over his pyjamas, having been similarly been jolted out of bed by the action, watching the searchlights play across the water. He described the speed of the incident in his post war book:
They appeared to our horrified vision of men struggling in the water, all the clearer for the surrounding darkness. The night was perfectly still and it was difficult to believe that the fighting lay only hundred yards distance, a noise which gradually rose and fell and finally subsided as the men were picked up or drowned until at last stillness once more reigned and no sign were left of the tragedy that had so suddenly overtaken Goliath. (7)

   Forrester was brought aboard a trawler and given some clothes before transferring to the Lord Nelson with the other survivors. The men swapped stories of their escapes with a Lieutenant telling the young Midshipman that his watch had stopped at 1:29 a.m. when he hit the water and believed the battleship had sunk in three and a half minutes. News that the Commander had survived was greeted well but tinged with grief for the loss of Captain Thomas Shelford who was killed in the water by a falling boat which crushed him beneath its weight. Another of the fallen was the young Ship’s boy Alfred Gadd. One Midshipman was not picked up until two days later when he was found floating in his Gieve safety waistcoat but he was too exhausted from his exertions and sadly passed away soon afterwards.

   The current and the swiftness of the sinking meant relatively few were saved with 570 men being killed and 20 officers and 130 men saved with the former surviving in greater numbers as their quarters were above deck and the rest of the crew were “caught like rats in a trap, and were drowned below” (8)

   The loss had a bad effect on the crews of the other battleships with the speed of the attack and sinking as well as the high rate of loss. Cowie would later record that “the sight of those poor fellows struggling in the water and the realisation of the swiftness of the catastrophe, were significant to unnerve the strongest men.” For the crewmen on the decks of the nearby battleships they were left feeling helpless:

   One would imagine that after having seen hundreds of dead and wounded one would be inured to shocks of all kinds, but nothing we had experienced affected us so profoundly as the sight of these men, swept past in the darkness on a five-knot current, and the sound of their voices rising from the water (9)

End Notes:

1. Ashmead-Bartlett E. The uncensored Dardanelles Loc 1807
2. Forester W    From Dartmouth to the Dardanelles Loc 1159
3. Ibid. Loc 1474
4. Goodchild, G. The Last cruise of the Majestic p.103
5. Stewart A. & Peshall C, The Immortal Gamble p. 171
6. Ibid p.171
7. Wester-Wemyss R. The Navy in the Dardanelles campaign, p.83
8. Ashmead-Bartlett E. The uncensored Dardanelles Loc 1816
9. Stewart A & Peshall C, The Immortal Gamble p. 169

Episode 2: The escape of Goeben & Breslau Podcast

Episode 3: The cruise of the Leipzig podcast

Episode 1 of my Podcast: World War One at Sea

Episode 1 of my Podcast: World War One at Sea - Introduction and starting positions 1914.

Bombardment of Zeebrugge November 1914

HMS Russell

With Admiral Nicholson’s 3^rd Battle Squadron based at Dover as part of the Anti-invasion plans (arriving on the 15^th November) it was only logical to use those “Duncans” to carry out the bombardment. Nicholson’s flagship HMS Russell and HMS Exmouth were chosen and were to be escorted by the destroyers Archer, Attack, Ariel, Ferret, Forrester, Druid and the Defender. As the area would be undoubtedly mined and in spite of complaints from the Senior Naval officer at Lowestoft four pairs of fast minesweepers from Lowestoft were detailed to clear a path for the force. Also attached to the force would be the airships Astra Torress and Parecval who would
monitor the fall of the battleship’s shots and report back damage caused if the weather permitted.

   The main target for the Russell and Exmouth was the Bruges Canal lock and any submarines or vessels in the harbour as well as military buildings within the town including two new defensive batteries that had been recently established. The force left Dover at 3:30 a.m. on the morning of the 23^rd November with four destroyers escorting the battleships and four ahead protecting the minesweepers. They passed the western end of the Thornton ridge by forenoon and at 12:30 p.m. they reduced speed to 6 knots so that the sweepers could clear a path. This was easier said than done though with the sweepers encountering strong currents that spread their nets and with the heart stopping moment when a moored German mine was sighted between the sweepers and the battleships. Swift action averted a crisis and the ships continued to position and enter the Wielingen Channel and run down to Zeebrugge arriving at 2:30 p.m.. Nicholson ordered his guns to aim at the harbour, defensive forts and the railway station.

   With the Airships unable to leave Kingsnorth due to weather so destroyers stationed three to four miles to port of the battleships attempted to spot the fall of shot but were fairly unsuccessful in their attempts. The Russell and Exmouth open fired with their fore turrets at 12,500 yards before firing in regular salvoes and after fifteen minutes they altered course by four points to port so as to narrow the range to 6000 yards allowing the 6” guns and after turrets to fire as well. They altered course again once they had passed the Wielingen Light ship as the two minesweepers had to retire and bereft of protection it was decided to turn and return back through their track through the safe waters. All firing ceased at 3:40 p.m. as the two ships passed out of range and the taskforce returned to their various ports.

   Dutch press would later talk of serious damage and U-boats destroyed and sinking in the harbour but Admiral Nicholson was less enthusiastic about his force’s effort over the seventy minute ordeal. The North easterly wind had blown Nicholson’s own smoke between him and the harbour obscuring the targets and with the destroyers unable to report accurately his hits it was hard to say for definite what he had done but was confident that the lock was at least out of commission.

   During the bombardment the Russell and Exmouth had fired 76 rounds from their turrets and a further 143 rounds of the 6” ammunition each but the Exmouth had fired off a quantity of shrapnel rounds which although deadly for men swarming over decks, failed to do any damage to the target buildings.

   Nicholson’s assessment of the bombardment was fairly accurate with the real damage being negligible with only an electric power station for the lock being temporarily out of action meaning the Germans had to open the lock by hand. No U-boats were sunk as none were present and the batteries remained silent as Nicholson was out of range. The whole bombardment failed to affect the Germans who continued to strengthen the defences and further request more U-boats for operations in the area.