Post Description

voor de liefhebbers van submarines en modelbouw :)

Maly Modelarz (1997.10-11) - Podwodny stawiacz min "Wilk"
model card

ORP Wilk was the lead boat of her class of mine-laying submarines of the Polish Navy. The ship saw service in the Polish Navy from 1931 to 1951. Her name meant "Wolf" in Polish.

[edit] History
Wilk was laid down in 1927 at Chantiers Augustine Normand shipyard at Le Havre in France. Launched on April 12, 1929, she was commissioned into the Polish Navy in 1931.

When World War II began on September 1, 1939, Wilk, commanded by Captain Boguslaw Krawczyk, took part in the Worek Plan for the defense of the Polish coast. On September 3 she deployed her mines as planned. After suffering battle damage, she left the Polish coast on September 10, successfully escaping from the Baltic Sea and arriving in Great Britain on September 20. Only ORP Orzel managed to accomplish the same feat later; the other three Polish submarines were interned in neutral Sweden.

On December 7, 1939 one of the mines laid by the submarine in September sunk a German fishing vessel MFK Pil 55 at position 54°37'05?N 19°47'00?E? / ?54.61806°N 19.7833333°E? / 54.61806; 19.7833333.

On June 20, 1940, the ORP Wilk rammed an unidentified vessel. The boat may have been U-22, which may have sunk as the result of the collision. This has not been proven and the vessel the Wilk collided with is still a mystery. Some sources suggest it might have been an Allied Dutch submarine O13, also lost at sea around that time.

Due to her poor mechanical shape, ORP Wilk was decommissioned as a reserve submarine on April 2, 1942.

In 1951, ORP Wilk was decommissioned from the Polish Navy, then towed to Poland and scrapped.

A second ORP Wilk, a Foxtrot class submarine, served in the Polish Navy from 1987 to 2003.

Thanks to Up Periscope :)