The defensive war of 1939 was full of errors of the command and simple cowardice. To this day, discussions continue on the behavior of Capt. Mar. Wiktor Łomiga, who deprived the largest Polish ship of its main weapon on the first day of the war.
At the time of the German attack on Poland, ORP "Gryf" had been serving under the white and red flag for only one and a half years. During this time, he made two unofficial trips abroad to Tallinn. Due to the deteriorating situation, intensive training of the crew was mainly conducted.
In August 1938, the ship, commanded by Lieutenant Commander Stanisław Dzienisiewicz, struck the quay. This was due to the fact that the engines were running in reverse not surprisingly. Gryf spent several days in a dry dock. It was docked again in November. In the meantime, the commander has changed. The new "first after God" was Cdr. Roman Stankiewicz. He led the ship to the Gulf of Bothnia on a patrol during which the movements of the German fleet during the occupation of Klaipeda were observed.
It was the only longer voyage of the "Gryf" under the command of Stankiewicz. In March, the commander of the ship was Cdr. Stefan Kwiatkowski. He was supposed to lead the mine-maker to war.
Preparing for war
As early as in the spring of 1939, preparations for the expected attack began. Inspections of the guns were made and unnecessary school equipment removed, such as shooting targets. Strenuous training of the crew began - gun activities were practiced, practice mines were put, and signalers improved their communication and collaboration in teams.
The operation lasted three days and was completed after the arrival of the battleship "Schleswig-Holstein" to Gdańsk.
Extensive maneuvers were carried out at the turn of July and August. They were practiced individually and in teams. Every piece of seafaring craftsmanship was polished. After the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, an alarm was announced.
All seamen were brought from holidays and sick rooms. Gryf went to the area of Kępa Oksywska, where combat mines began to be loaded from the supply crypts. The operation lasted three days and was completed after the arrival of the battleship "Schleswig-Holstein" to Gdańsk.
Morning September 1st
On the morning of the first day of the war, "Gryf" stood in Oksywie. St. boatswain Wojciech Klisowski, recalls the morning as follows:
September 1, 1939 - wake up on the ship, as usual, at 6.00 am, then collection for morning prayer. We go on deck and hear the whirr of German bombers. We sailors distinguished well the drone of German planes, because in the summer of 1939 they hovered very low above us and our other ships.
The signalman on duty repeats the received signal announcing that three Polish planes will be passing through the port and shooting at them is not allowed. The flight time and route were given, and at the moment everything was correct. Someone shouted "Rangefinder, check."
The fog was very strong, nothing was visible above the mast of the ship, even though it was daylight. It was this fog that saved the ship from bombing. A non-commissioned officer (I do not remember the name) says after checking:"Three German ones, 500 m high, are going straight at us". The watch officer gives the order:"Do not shoot." After a while, the order was given to the cannons and the crew opened fire, but the planes were already departing, they took a course to the sea station in Gdynia, then to Nowy Port.
The "Gryf" immediately dropped the lines and, for the first time without tugs, left the quay and headed towards Kuźnicka Jama, where it dropped anchor. At around 10 o'clock, he was detected by German planes. Kwiatkowski ordered the anchor to be lifted and the ship began to navigate the waters of the Bay of Puck. At that time, minesweepers joined him.
"Tube" plan
At 4 p.m., an order was issued ordering the construction of a mine farm that would cut off the entrance to the Bay of Puck. Around 6.00 p.m., the team consisting of the minehunter "Gryf", the destroyer "Wicher", six minesweepers and two old gunboats was located south of Hel.
Lt. Mar. Res. Jędrzej Giertych was one of the officers who were to move the boats to the port in Oksywie. He ended up in the middle of a battle by accident.
I unexpectedly met the largest Polish warship - the minehunter "Gryf" [...]. Officers in the bow waved their hands friendlyly at me. I saluted them , gazing enviously from my unarmed shell at their menacingly grinning cannon silhouette and their proud flag waving.
Swallow-type minesweepers, which were to accompany the Gryphon during Operation Tube
They barely showed up - and had already disappeared into the distance. I looked after them for a moment, then turned my gaze forward - towards the Bay of Puck and towards the widely scattered fleet of cutters, of which I was the last link. When, after a long moment, I turned my head back towards the "Gryf", I saw that he was suddenly accompanied by the destroyer "Wicher" and six trawlers, and that he was sailing with them more or less from the Hel headland towards Gdańsk [...].
I barely noticed a sailing team of warships - when the keys of the German planes appeared over the team. In an instant the air filled with the noise of battle.
Tragic battle
The largest ship of the team - the "Gryfa" - was the main target of the attacks by German planes. For the ensign, 2nd Lt. Józef Iżycki, who was in the engine room, had a hard time:
The second watch was on duty, when suddenly, unexpectedly, in a mad rush, "stukas" began to fall from the sky. Anti-aircraft guns thundered, heavy machine guns and machine guns rattled. The sailors grabbed their rifles, the water boiled and fountains sprang up. Sailing fantasy flared up, frenzy and gambling flared up… Only signalers on duty who they had to listen to the whir of airplanes, see and count the falling bombs, they instinctively threw their navy blue collars over their heads, because it seemed to them that every bomb was hitting the ship.
The old ensign was in the engine room with his shift. He had been through the whole world war at sea and now, standing at his post, he understood the situation well. He knew perfectly well what it meant to have several hundred mines on board. One bomb - and the ship will only be splinters in the water.
[…] Now they envied the artillerymen, every on-board motorist, free from service. Heard the bombs explode around the ship, and waited ... Will he or will he miss? And finally she hit. The ship twitched convulsively, rocked violently, the roar of the explosion on board drowned out all other sounds.
Fortunately, the bomb did not hit the ship directly. It exploded right on the ship's side.
Sea of blood
St. Bosun Klisowski mentioned that:
There is a lot of blood on board. As I walked on, I saw a terrifying sight. At the first cannon in the bow a sailor is clinging to his left hand - he is standing headless. There is blood in the hallway. The room is almost ankle-high, the badly wounded are lying on the beds, the lightly wounded are sitting. The injured give their addresses to their colleagues and ask them to notify their family in the event of death. The smell of clotted blood is annoying. On one bed there is a signalman from the reserve. He keeps his entrails in a sheet. He asks to notify the family.
The commander was hit in the first attack. They carry him down the gangplank. His leg is severed, there is a severe blood loss. There is no question of rescue. In the ship's infirmary, the seriously wounded die, the health service performs the first treatments , there are no conditions and time for thorough treatments. I put the bandage on and go to the position.
ORP Gryf
The seaman whose head was severed was a certain Szlęk. This is mentioned by St. Mar. Kosinski:
Sailor Szlęk was lying on the deck in a great pool of blood with his head torn off. There is a nauseating scent of blood. The bomb exploded a short distance from the ship. There is something terrible in the air above and around the ship, hell.
The situation was equally tragic on the battle pier. Sailor Piotr Wójtowicz, recalled:
I was standing at the helm on the combat platform. At that moment, a massive air raid took place on our ship. The first bomb that hit us fell in close proximity to the starboard side, exactly at the height of the pier. The commander still managed to give the order:"Rudder to the right 20, both engines full ahead!". Immediately the telegraph was set both inches ahead. I shifted the rudder to the right on 20.
After the bomb went off, the commander fell, no longer getting up. Also the signalman at the telegraph was thrown to the starboard side of the fighting platform with all his insides out . I was injured in my left leg, but fortunately it was not serious. I immediately put the rudder to the left 20 for a change, as it was done during anti-aircraft exercises. I noticed that the rudder stopped working. Quickly, jumping on one leg, I reported a rudder failure to the navigating bridge.
The losses were huge. Not only on the combat platform, but also on board. Mainly due to the carelessness of the crew. Mar. Stanisław Walankiewicz recalled that:“Most of the killed and wounded were former sailors living in the bow, from the machine crew. It's just their foolish curiosity. Instead of hiding below deck, they came out to watch the bombing. A moment later, there was a tragedy. The deck was covered in blood. ”
New commander
About 30 bombs fell on the Gryf. Three sailors were killed and a dozen injured. The most serious loss was the death of Cdr. second-lieutenant Kwiatkowski, who was replaced on the bridge by Capt. Mar. Wiktor Lomidze. It happened around 6 p.m. Four hours before the start of the planned mining operation. Moments later Łomidze made one of the most controversial decisions. As it turned out years later - against orders, opinions of other officers and against the crew. Rumors spread that… he ordered mines thrown overboard
The crew was outraged by this turn of events. Lt. Mar. Zbigniew Jagusiewicz, 2nd artillery officer, recalled:
At one point I noticed Leszek Dandelski and Witek Szczepanowski standing at the stern. I approached them saying:" Well, we were a bit lucky, they missed us. " They dismissed my attention with silence, and one of them said:" You heard, we got to throw mines overboard, unarmed. " I didn't want to believe my ears. " What, why? ”.
We discussed this order and decided to talk about it with Jurek Skowroński, who took over the duties of the first officer of underwater weapons from the wounded Wachtel. After Jurek's arrival, we inundated him with questions about the mines and the possibility of putting them according to the plan. He was of the opinion that despite the serious failures in the mine chamber equipment, we were able to erect this homestead. It all depended on the failure of the rudder being repaired in time.
We were impressed that the decision to throw unarmed mines was made by Fleet Command and not by z.d.o. Besides, being trained in the spirit of absolute discipline and obedience we could not decide to openly rebel . We parted ways depressed by the hopeless situation.
ORP Wicher
Cf. Mar. Konrad Wachtel, 1st officer of underwater weapons, announced a free crew fundraiser on the orders of Łomidze. St. Bosun Klisowski wrote:
The ship is all chopped up by shrapnel and shells from her deck weapons. There has been a rudder failure. Communication and electrical network damaged. We go towards the port of Hel. An order is given to "assemble the free crew in the stern" and then "sink all mines". The order was carried out quickly.
After unloading and sinking mines, we entered the naval port of Hel. The incoming ships, including ORP "Gryf", deposited the dead on the pier. The seriously injured paramedics take them to the hospital, the lightly wounded go on foot. The armament of ORP "Gryf" is still in good condition, so the ship reaches the pier and creates defense batteries for Hel from the land side. She stayed on the ship only anti-aircraft weapons service, the rest of the crew are on land.
Contrary to what the officers and crew believed, the order was not issued by Fleet Command. It did not know about getting rid of the greatest asset of the "Griffin". Like Commander de Waiden, who was supposed to cover the mining operation and set out to sea as planned. At the appointed time, navigating between the German ships and the "minefield", he returned to Hel, where it turned out that the "Gryf" was in the port and that the operation had been canceled!
Two days later, both ships lay at the bottom of the port basin in Hel. However, the case of the events of September 1, 1939 returned six years later.
Investigation
Capt. Mar. Łomidze made his way through Sweden to Great Britain. Despite subsequent promotions, he never returned to sea. For three years, until 1944, he was the head of the Independent Personnel Department. There was a "non-floating" entry in his personal files. He received a position in the line unit only after the end of the war - he became the first officer of the Staff of the South Naval Command in Plymouth. The first report on the events of September 1 was made on February 27, 1940. Łomidze wrote to Rear Admiral Jerzy Świrski:
Expecting the second attack immediately and not wanting to expose the ship to complete destruction in the event of a bomb hit, I ordered to start throwing mines from the tween deck. They managed to throw away about 30 minutes by sunset. When it started to get dark, I ordered to stop throwing mines. (...) When asked by Wichra whether the mine-laying operation would take place, I replied that probably not that night.
Świrski decided that Łomidze was guilty of depriving the striker. However, he stated that Rear Admiral Unrug and his staff were responsible for everything
All mines jumped off the tracks from the bomb blasts. As a result, there was a misalignment of mines, depth weights developed. Re-preparation of the mines would take a minimum of 8 hours. (…) At 20.30 Wicher gave me a blinker - "throw mines", and at the same time the traulator brought permission to enter the port. Thinking that Fleet Dtwo, unable to communicate with me due to damage to my radio, had indirectly transmitted the order via Gale, I had the signal repeated - they received the same.
Knowing about the prevailing fear of mines exploding in the basin, I assumed that Fleet Dtwo was allowing entry into port after mines were thrown.
The case was postponed for the duration of the war. However, after peace, Świrski ordered to start an investigation, which was conducted by commander Czesław Petelenz. It soon turned out that Łomidze was lying in the report from 1940.
The order was not there
When asked about the exchange of signals on September 1, 1939, see Mar. Aleksander Kadulski, the then signaling officer at ORP "Wicher" testified:
The signal:"throw the mines" was not sent by ORP Wicher to ORP Gryf, and no other signal could come out, because ORP Gryf was not under the orders of the commander of ORP Wicher.
Gryf wreck
Cf. Mar. Kadulski testified that the only signals exchanged between the ships took place when it was noticed that mines were being dropped from the "Gryf" . Commander de Walden was informed that the ship was dropping damaged mines and entering the port of Hel. The commander of "Wichra", convinced that the builder was going to collect new mines, moved to the designated position.
Meanwhile, "Gryf" entered the port and Łomidze notified the command by phone about the decisions made. Surprised staff officers told him to stay there and wait for the next orders. He didn't come back to the Gryphon. The duties of the commander were taken over by the commander, 2nd Lt. Stanisław Hryniewiecki.
Subsequent interrogated deck and staff officers confirmed that no one had given the order to throw the mines and there was also no exchange of messages between the Fleet Command and "Gale" regarding the throwing of mines. Świrski decided that Łomidze was guilty of depriving the striking force of the builder . However, he stated that Rear Admiral Unrug and his staff were responsible for everything, which he said was "negative about the mines."
Perhaps such an assessment would have been meaningful if the Fleet Command had given the order and had it not been for the fact that Świrski had been trying to discredit Unrug for years. The vice admiral had just returned from captivity, and it was very convenient for Świrski to undermine his authority. He used a case from six years ago for this.
Łomidze did not suffer any consequences. To this day, the situation on September 1, 1939 arouses controversy. Was it Łomidzki's cowardice or common sense and willingness to save the ship?