ORP "Kujawiak" - final report published

Today, 26 October 2018, after 4 years of work, diving and exploration, the final report was published, summarising the activities undertaken in the subject of the wreck of the Polish ship ORP “Kujawiak” (L-72). Thus, the last chapter summarising the enormous effort undertaken by the members of Shipwreck Expeditions – Wreck Expeditions reaches our hands.

During the last 4 years the Shipwreck Expeditions team has undertaken a number of expeditions with the aim of finding and then exploring and documenting the wreck of a Polish vessel from the times of the Second World War. Each of the expeditions was successful, and you could follow their progress via our portal on an ongoing basis. We now invite you to familiarise yourselves with the contents of final report.

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On 22 September 2014, the Polish expedition “The Hunt for L72″ located and identified the wreck of the Polish destroyer ORP “Kujawiak”. On 16 June 1942, the vessel sank off the coast of Malta, where she was on escort duty. While protecting one of the transports, the L-72 ran into a mine and went down. On that day 13 Polish seamen lost their lives.

During her short service, “Kujawiak” participated in missions in the Bristol Channel and the English Channel. The last wartime touch before sinking was the big operation “Harpoon”, during which she escorted supplies to Malta.

The keel for ORP “Kujawiak” was laid on 22 November 1939 in the Vickers-Armstrong shipyard, High Walker, Tyne. The Hunt II type destroyer was originally planned to enter service with the Royal Navy as HMS “Oakley”. The situation changed when the Polish government placed an order for 18 ships of this type on 4 September 1939. The order for 18 ships of this type was placed by the Polish government on 4 September 1939. “Kujawiak” was one of the three from this order that went to our Navy.

The L-72 measured 85.34m long and 9.62m wide. The displacement of the vessel was 1050 t. The ship was powered by two sets of Parsons steam turbines, 19000 shp; two Admiralty type boilers and two screws. This allowed her to develop a speed of 27 knots and translated into a range of 2000Mm at 20 knots and 3700Mm at an economy speed of 14 knots.

The whole unit was armed with 6 universal guns cal. 102 mm, 4 plot guns cal. 40 mm, 2-4 plot guns cal. 20 mm, 2 machine guns cal. 7.7 mm, 1-2 launchers and 2 depth bomb throwers.

Source: wyprawywrakowe.pl

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