Saturday 4 November 2017

Poles discover a long-lost British submarine

The Sun yesterday and the i today relate a diving story which is dramatic in any circumstances, but in today's xenophobic atmosphere has extra resonance. A theme currently popular with militant Brexiteers on social media is a demand that the UK charge the continent of Europe for delivering it from fascism. That confirms for me that these are the kind of people who would have been on the side of the appeasers and against Churchill in the 1930s. We went to war over Hitler's invasion of Poland, but the Poles amply repaid us when Hitler turned his attention to Britain. One of the Polish squadrons in the RAF, 303 Squadron, recorded the highest number of kills of any squadron in the Battle of Britain. Polish soldiers fought alongside Britons. The first cipher crackers to break Germany's Enigma code were not based in Bletchley Park but Warsaw. The Poles realised that mathematics held the key and made a vital disclosure of their working methods to the Allies at the start of the war.

The latest assistance to Britain came about accidentally. A Polish diving company had sought the wreckage of a famous Polish submarine, the Orzel. This had been one of two subs ordered from Dutch shipyards by Poland as part of an effort to create a navy strong enough to defend the nation’s 90-mile northern coastline, and paid for by public subscription. Orzel had been trapped by the Nazi Blitzkrieg in September 1939, but made a dramatic breakout barely a week later and went on to a number of successful missions against the Nazis before being lost. The Poles have been trying to find the totemic boat for the last decade.

It was while searching for the Orzel that Santi Diving located another boat which they believe to be Narwhal, a British mine-laying submarine which was sunk by the Luftwaffe in 1940. The Sun reports:

Tomasz Stachura, one of the divers behind the expedition, said: "We are very interested in any contact with HMS Narwhal staff relatives as it would be good to hear their stories."

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