77th anniversary of the departure of the legendary ORP "Orzeł" on its last patrol

23 May 2017 marks 77 years since the military unit ORP “Orzeł”, the pride of the Navy, went to sea and disappeared in circumstances that have not yet been explained. A group of historians, hydrographers and divers who are part of the Santi expedition Odnaleźć Orła set out on the trail of the legendary submarine to explain the historical mystery.

On 23 May 1940. ORP “Orzeł” went out on her last, sixth patrol, from which, for reasons unexplained to this day, she did not return to the base in Rosyth. There are numerous hypotheses on the subject of the disappearance of “Orł”. For many years the cause of the sinking of the Eagle was seen in the entry of a German sea mine or in an attack of a German aircraft. Other theories spoke of mistaken torpedoing by a Dutch submarine, a defect in the ship’s mechanisms or a navigational error on the part of the crew. Among the hypotheses, the most probable seems to be the one according to which the cause of the sinking of the submarine “Orzeł” should be sought in a mistaken air attack on the submarine, carried out by an RAF plane at a distance of about 150 Mm east of the British port of Rosyth.

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On Saturday 20 May this year, the three-week Santi expedition To Find the Eagle set off, its aim being to find the lost ship. Its members verify the hypothesis that the cause of the sinking of the Polish ship could have been a bomb attack by a British plane. What is special about this year’s expedition is the fact that in order to carry out the research, the crew will cover the historic route of the legendary ship, which it travelled in October 1939 after escaping from the port of Tallinn, heading for Great Britain. Equipped with specialist equipment, the expedition members will explore a 1,350 square kilometre area of the North Sea floor around the position of the alleged air attack.

ORP “Orzeł” was built in 1939 from voluntary contributions of the Polish society. After the outbreak of World War II, it was interned in the Estonian port of Tallinn, from where it escaped as a result of a daring action of the ship’s crew. Pursued by the German and Soviet navies, he made his way without maps across the Baltic and the North Sea to the shores of the United Kingdom, where he made six combat patrols alongside the British Navy. During one of them she sank the German transport ship “Rio de Janeiro” carrying troops, thus exposing the beginning of Nazi Germany’s invasion of neutral Norway. In June 1940, for reasons unexplained to this day, ORP “Orzeł” did not return to the base from the sixth combat patrol in the North Sea.

More about the project can be found on the official website of the projectas well as social profile on the facebook portal.

SANTI sp. z o.o. – main sponsor of the project

SANTI is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of diving clothing and equipment. In just a few years, the company from Gdynia has transformed from a local manufacturer of diving suits into a brand with an established position on the global diving equipment market.

The company is present on all continents, selling to nearly 40 countries worldwide, including: the USA, South Korea, Canada, Australia, Brazil and the main European markets. SANTI’s flagship products include dry diving suits and warmers. The company is the originator and the leading manufacturer of diving warming accessories, such as heated gloves or waistcoats.

For several years SANTI has been actively involved in the organisation and support of international research expeditions (e.g. Sedna, Under the Pole, Elysium) and shipwreck explorations around the world. This is how the project “SANTI – Finding the Eagle” was born, which is to lead to finding the wreck and finally solve the mystery of the disappearance of the Polish ship.

Source: Santi Finding the Eagle