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warspite1 -> RE: Bob Flemin's MWIF AARse (11/10/2013 7:49:00 AM)
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Back to Poland and Gdynia is seized by the Germans. As a result there is a throw for the overrun naval units. Both throws are high. allowing both the CP and the Destroyer Flotilla to escape to the UK, where they will bravely fight on for the Allied cause [&o]
Unit write-up for the Polish Destroyer Counter.
• Engine(s) output: 54,500 hp
• Top Speed: 39 knots
• Main armament: 7 x 4.7-inch (120mm), 4 x 40mm guns
• Displacement (full load): 3,383 tons
• Thickest armour: Not applicable
The Polish navy in World In Flames is represented by a destroyer flotilla counter. In reality, this flotilla was made up of four relatively modern destroyers: Burza and Wicher of the Wicher-class and Blyskawica and Grom of the Grom-class. The ships were named after metreological conditions; Burza (Storm), Wicher (Gale), Grom
(Thunder) and Blyskawica (Lightning). It is for the Grom- class that the technical details above are given.
Of the two destroyer classes, the Wichers were the elder, having been built in the late twenties in France to a design based upon the Bourrasque-class. These ships were not entirely satisfactory and were earmarked for modernisation during the early forties; this work of course was never started.
The British built Grom-class were a different proposition, and they provided the Polish Navy with two fast, well-armed, modern destroyers. In addition to these four vessels, the Polish Navy contained five submarines, six minesweepers, a minelayer and other sundry units.
Unfortunately, against an enemy like the Kriegsmarine, the small Polish Navy were never going to be able to put up much of a fight in defence of their country. As a result, in early 1939, the Polish and British Governments agreed on a plan for getting some of the Polish naval units to Britain should an attack by Germany be imminent. It was hoped that from the UK they would be of greater use to the Polish cause, acting under the command of the Royal Navy (RN).
With a German attack on Poland expected at any time, three destroyers were chosen to sail for Britain in late August. These were ORP (Okret Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej - Ship of the Polish Republic) Grom, Burza and Blyskawica, and they arrived in the UK on the 1st September; the same day that the Germans launched their invasion of Poland. In addition to these three vessels, two submarines were also able to make it to the UK; the Wilk and the Orzel and they joined the RN's 2nd Submarine Flotilla. The sound thinking behind the Anglo-Polish plan had been proved within days of the German invasion; Whicher and most of the other ships of the Polish Navy were soon sunk.
In November 1939, the Polish Government-in-exile and the British Government signed the Anglo-Polish Naval Agreement, under which Polish Navy ships were to be operated in every way as Polish Navy vessels, but with the exception that they were under the operational control of the British Admiralty.
Both the Polish Navy and their merchant equivalent suffered a number of losses in 1940 (for details of the latter see Commonwealth Transport Counter 4724 which, in the absence of a Polish counter of this type, pays tribute to the sailors of the Polish merchant fleet). Grom took part in the ill-fated Norwegian Campaign and in early May, while she was in Rombaksfjord providing shore bombardment against German positions around Narvik, she was sunk during an air attack. In addition the submarine Orzel was lost with all hands just a month later; it is believed she fell victim to a mine.
It had been Orzel that had sunk the German freighter Rio de Janeiro at the start of the German invasion of Norway, and it was the presence of that freighter that had convinced the British that the German fleet movements were not just an attempt to break-out into the Atlantic. Sadly, and for a variety of reasons, the British were unable to make best use of this intelligence and the Germans were able to land troops all along the Norwegian coast.
The RN agreed to transfer ships to replace these losses and to build-up the Polish Navy during the course of the war. The transfers included the destroyers Garland (name remained the same), Nerissa (re-named Piorun), Myrmidon (Orkan) and three Hunt-class escort destroyers: Silverton (Krakowiak), Oakley (Kujawiak) and Bedale (Slazak). In addition the RN transferred the destroyer Ouragon (name remained the same) that they had previously seized from the French Navy after the French surrender in June 1940. Three submarines and a host of smaller vessels were also transferred.
The largest ships handed over to the Polish Navy were the two D-class cruisers, Dragon (which retained her name) and Danae (Conrad), the latter being transferred after the loss of the former in July 1944.
The Polish Navy fought alongside the RN in all the main battlegrounds of the European threatre including Dunkirk, the Arctic convoys to the Soviet Union, the Mediterranean and the Battle of the Atlantic. Piorun was involved in the hunt for the German battleship Bismarck in May 1941.
Polish losses continued throughout the war; the submarine Jastrzab was lost in a friendly fire incident while screening convoy PQ-15 in the Arctic; a month later the Kujawiak was sunk by a mine while off Malta during the important Malta relief operation, Harpoon; Orkan was torpedoed and sunk with heavy loss of life in October 1943 whilst on convoy escort duty in the North Atlantic and in July 1944 the cruiser Dragon was so badly damaged by a torpedo, while off the beaches of Normandy, that she was scuttled and used to form part of one of the artificial Mulberry harbours.
The story of Poland in World War II is one of the great many that tug at the heartstrings. The country over which the European war started was quickly overrun by both the Germans and the Soviets. However, many of her soldiers, sailors and airmen fled the country in order to fight on with the Allies to try and help restore Polish independence. Sadly, despite the gallant, heroic efforts of her servicemen and women, this was not to be; one totalitarian regime was simply swapped for another. They deserved so much better.
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