ORP Grom (1937)
 |
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
The ORP Grom was a destroyer in the Polish Navy during World War II .
The warship was evacuated to Great Britain before the start of the war as part of Operation Beijing and took part in several Allied operations in the service of the Polish government- in- exile .
The Grom was lost on May 4, 1940 during the German invasion of Norway .
Construction and design features
In order to support the outmoded destroyers of the Wicher- class , the Polish Navy ordered from the British shipyard John Samuel White & Co Ltd. in Cowes on the Isle of Wight two modern heavy destroyers. Construction of both ships began in 1935.
Since Poland had only a very short coastline, the planned main task of the destroyers was to protect supplies. Therefore, the ships were Grom class the ability to defend both coasts and convoys escort.
With her two Parsons - steam turbines , the three boilers and two shafts together 54,000 hp power levies, the destroyers were up to 39.5 knots go, which they then the speed of modern destroyer Farragut - Porter - Le-Fantasque - or Tribal class .
The ships were very large with a maximum displacement of 2,400 ts for the shallow and narrow waters of the Baltic Sea .
Because of their size and range of 3,500 nautical miles, the destroyers were able to escort convoys of the allies of Great Britain and France to both Gdynia ( Gdansk Bay ) and Constanța ( Black Sea ) in Romania .
The Grom was laid down on July 17, 1935, launched on July 20, 1936, and entered service on May 11, 1937.
commitment
1939
Due to the overwhelming superiority of the German navy (see: Balance of power at the beginning of the war ), plans had already been made before the war began to evacuate the large Polish surface units to Great Britain.
Therefore, on August 29, as part of Operation Peking Grom , the younger sister ship Błyskawica and the Wicher- class destroyer Burza left their home base in Gdynia to escape to Great Britain.
The destroyer association reached the North Sea on September 1 without incident , where it met the British destroyers Wanderer and Wallace , who were escorting the three Polish ships to Leith in Scotland .
The base of operations of the Polish Association was Harwich in England until April 1940 .
On November 6th, Grom and Błyskawica received the order to rescue shot down British pilots from the Dogger Bank area . The destroyers were of German -115 Hey - seaplanes attacked with torpedoes and had to retreat.
On November 21, Grom , Burza and Błyskawica ran together with the British destroyer Gipsy for patrol in the North Sea. The Gipsy hit a German sea mine, broke in half and sank. The three Polish warships rescued the survivors and continued patrol.
1940
On April 4, 1940, the three Polish destroyers were relocated to their new base in Rosyth , but left it immediately to run together with the British light cruisers Arethusa , Galatea and three destroyers off the Norwegian coast. The aim of the operation was to take action against the impending German invasion of northern Europe .
On April 9, the German company Weserübungen began the invasion of Norway and Denmark . The three Polish destroyers were given the task of escorting the convoy HN 24, which consisted of 31 merchant ships , together with the British destroyer Tartar . The ships fled Norway, some were loaded with the Norwegian gold treasure . The convoy reached Great Britain without losses.
On April 12th, Burza , Grom and Błyskawica reached the base in Rosyth, were refueled and drove immediately to Scapa Flow , which they left on April 19th for Narvik. The bandage got caught in a storm that damaged Burza and forced it to turn back.
On April 21, Grom and Błyskawica reached the Vestfjord off Narvik . Both ships actively participated in the defense against the German invasion.
On May 4th the Grom was attacked and sunk by a KG 100 He-111 bomber in the Rombakken Fjord while it was bombarding German landing forces in Narvik . 59 Polish sailors died. 154 crew members were rescued.
Post-history
The wreck was never raised. On October 6, 1986, divers entered the remains of the destroyer for the first time.
See also
- ORP Grom (other ships of the Polish Navy named Grom )
literature
- MJ Whitley: Destroyers in World War II , Motorbuchverlag, Stuttgart, 2nd edition 1997, ISBN 3-613-01426-2
Web links
Footnotes
- ^ "ORP" is the abbreviation for "Okręt Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej" and the name prefix of Polish ships. ORP means "Warship of the Republic of Poland".
- ↑ In the Polish language “Grom” means “ thunder ”.
Coordinates: 68 ° 27 ′ 43.9 " N , 17 ° 26 ′ 35" E