POLISH SUBMARINE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 12 December 1939, Page 8

POLISH SUBMARINE

AN ADVENTUROUS ESCAPE FROM BALTIC ) ACTIVE & CLOSE PURSUIT. DETAILS OF STORY MADE KNOWN. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 11.12 a.m.) RUGBY, December 11. Details of the amazing voyage from Gydnia to England of the Polish submarine Orzel, after the German invaesion of Poland, are now revealed. The submarine left Gydnia on September 1, eluding a cordon of German submarines strung across the gulf of Danzig and made for the Baltic. After a fortnight, the captain became so ill that he had to be landed at Tallinn, in Estonia. Here they found an oil tanker, an Estonian gunboat, five destroyers and two I submarines. Owing to the fact that a German merchantman was leaving the harbour shortly, the Estonian authorities refused the Orzel permission to proceed. The captain was left for another twenty-four hours and at the end of this time officials arrived aboard with the astonishing announcement that, as the Orzel had exceeded the time allowed in a neutral port by international law. the submarine was under arrest. The complement were not asked for their parole, but the breech blocks of the guns, all charts and small arms, and all but five torpedoes were removed from the submarine. That night, the First Lieutenant, taking command of the submarine, cut the binding wires, gagged and took aboard the guard, and made an escape. The sound of their capstan revealed

their intentions and destroyers turned searchlights and gunfire on them. At thirty feet from.the exit of the harbour they grounded. With bullets being fired at them at point-blank range, they managed to slide off the rocks and escape. With the lights of lighthouses as their only guide to navigation, they fled and submerged. Next day the captain brought the submarine to the surface, charged the batteries, and later landed the Estonian guards on an island and made a wireless signal announcing the guard's safety. For a fortnight the submarine cruised in the Baltic, hunted the whole time and frequently running into rocks. It made for the Swedish coast when a flotilla of German destroyers was sighted but the water was too shallow to allow the submarine to attack with any chance of escape. At night the submarine rose to periscope depth and went ahead, but soon afterwards it grounded. After getting afloat again, and several times again grounding and being extricated, the vessel grounded on the surface. A searchlight from a destroyer time after time swung past within a few yaids. Those in the submarine realised that they had floundered into a channel so shallow that the Germans did not bother to search it. In desperation they blew all their tanks and refloated. They attempted to creep away, but were discovered and destroyers were after them. They submerged and lay quiet at the bottom and next day—the fortieth— they decided to try to set a course for England. With the wireless apparatus damaged and no recognition signals, they were a prey for attack by every nation. One of the officers, however, knew English, and on October 6 a faint message on an imper-| feet transmission reached a British wireless station. A few hours latei a British destroyer found them and led them into harbour. They had only three requests —to land a sick cook, to replenish their water supplies and-be given breech blocks for their guns. They were then prepared to go to sea forthwith on whatever patrol it pleased the British Navy to employ them.