Orzeł incident

Orzeł was docked at Oksywie when Nazi Germany attacked Poland and began World War II. The submarine at first took part in Operation Worek but was ordered to leave the Gulf of Danzig on 5 September as the situation evolved. On the night of the 5th the Orzeł was attacked by E-boats and bombers dropping depth charges, forcing them to submerge for two hours. The Orzeł cruised the Baltic for six days without sighting an enemy warship. It was during this time that the commanding officer Lieutenant-Commander Henryk Kłoczkowski became ill and an important piece of equipment broke down. Kłoczkowski was taken to a hospital the next day for treatment of his unidentified illness. While this was taking place the British Naval Attaché handed the crew two cards reading "Good luck and God bless you". ==Incident==

Escape The crew of ORP Orzeł conspired to escape under the new command of its chief officer, Lieutenant Jan Grudziński, and its new first officer, Lieutenant Andrzej Piasecki. That started with Grudziński's sabotage of the torpedo hoist on 16 September, which prevented the Estonians from removing the six aft torpedoes. Since it was a Sunday another could not be immediately acquired, and splicing the cable would have been a long job. Another sailor sabotaged the submarine's mooring lines. The Soviet invasion of Poland commenced on 17 September. On 18 September 1939, at around midnight, the portlights suffered an unexplained malfunction. Seizing the opportunity, Lieutenant Grudziński prepared the submarine for departure. The crew was forced to delay by the arrival of an Estonian officer. After a 30 minute inspection, he deemed nothing to be out of the ordinary and bid the Poles goodnight. The crew resumed with their plans. Two Estonian guards at the dock were lured aboard and non-violently taken prisoner, the lighting in the port was sabotaged and the mooring lines were cut with an axe. Both engines were started, and the submarine made her escape in the darkness. , Tallinn Orzeł arrived off the coast of Scotland on 14 October 1939. The crew sent out a signal in broken English, and a Royal Navy destroyer came out and escorted them into port. The arrival of Orzeł surprised the British Admiralty, which had long presumed the submarine to be lost. On 23 May 1940, Orzeł departed on its seventh patrol in the central North Sea; on 8 June the submarine was officially declared lost. Diplomatic crisis and aftermath After the submarine's escape from Tallinn, the Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union (TASS) "reported" that the Estonian government had "deliberately" allowed Orzeł to escape and that "other Polish submarines were hiding" in ports throughout the Baltic countries. Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union, having invaded Poland on 17 September 1939, accused Estonia of conspiring with the Polish seamen along with "aiding them to escape" and challenged the neutrality of Estonia. Orzeł sank no enemy vessels during her journey from Estonia to the United Kingdom, but the Soviet government also blamed the Polish submarine and Estonia for the alleged loss of the Soviet tanker Metallist in Narva Bay in Estonian territorial waters on 26 September 1939. The Soviets demanded to be allowed to establish military bases on Estonian soil and threatened full-scale war if Estonia did not comply with the ultimatum. Accusations related to the submarine incident served as a political cover for Stalin's actions, since in the secret clauses of the August 1939 German-Soviet Pact Nazi Germany already provided implicit approval for the Soviet takeover of Estonia, Latvia and Finland. The Orzeł incident was used by Stalin to force the "treaty of defence and mutual assistance" on Estonia, which was signed on 28 September 1939 and allowed the Soviets to establish several military bases on Estonian soil. The Soviet troops occupied the whole territory of Estonia in June 1940. ==See also==