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voor de liefhebbers van dutch submarine building :)

Halinski Kartonowy Arsenal 1997-06 - Submarine Orp Orzel
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ORP Orzel was the lead ship of her class of submarines serving in the Polish Navy during World War II. Her name means Eagle in Polish. The boat is best known for the Orzel incident, her escape from internment in neutral Estonia during the early stages of the Second World War.

History
Orzel was laid down 14 August 1936 at the Dutch shipyard De Schelde; launched on 15 January 1938, and commissioned on 2 February 1939. She was a modern design (designed by the joint venture of Polish and Dutch engineers), albeit quite large for the shallow waters of Baltic Sea

 Orzel incident
At the beginning of the invasion of Poland (1939) Orzel had been deployed on patrol in a designated strategic zone of the Baltic Sea. Due to the German invasion, the Orzel was unable to return to the Polish naval bases at Hel near the major port city of Gdynia.

The Orzel's crew decided to head to Tallinn, Estonia as a result of an unidentified illness from which their Captain Lieutenant-Commander Henryk Kloczkowski had been suffering since September 8. ORP Orzel reached Tallinn on 14 September 1939 and on 15 September the Captain was forced to leave the submarine to undergo hospital treatment. Under the Hague Convention of 1907, section XIII, Article 12, [1] "belligerent ships" could enter a neutral port but were forbidden from remaining there for "more than twenty-four hours." At the insistence of Germany, the Estonian military authorities boarded the ship, interned the crew, confiscated all the navigation aids and maps, and commenced removing all her armaments. However, only fifteen or her twenty torpedoes were removed before the hoist cable parted; this was because it had been secretly sabotaged by her new commander, former chief officer Lt.Cdr. Jan Grudzinski VM VM DSO.

The crew of the Orzel conspired together to carry out a daring escape. Around midnight 21 September, the submarine's Estonian guards were overpowered, the mooring lines were cut, and Orzel got under way. The alarm was raised, and her conning tower was peppered by machine-gun fire. Running half-submerged, Orzel ran aground on a bar at the harbour mouth, where artillery fire damaged her wireless equipment. Grudzinski managed to get the boat off the bar by blowing her tanks, and she proceeded out of the Gulf of Finland, intending to sail for a British port, the crew having heard a radio report that the Polish submarine Wilk had been welcomed in Britain.

Orzel escaped from Tallinn with two Estonian guards on board as hostages. The Estonian and German press covering the ORP Orzel incident declared the two captured guards missing at sea. Captain Grudzinski set them ashore in Sweden, providing them with clothing, money, and food for their safe return to homeland. The Polish crew believed that those returning from the underworld "deserve to travel first class only". The escape of the submarine Orzel was used by the Soviet Union and Germany to challenge Estonian neutrality.

Thanks to SSBN :)