ORP "Kujawiak" ship's bell found after 74 years!

The third expedition to the wreck of the Polish escort destroyer L-72, also known as ORP “Kujawiak”, ended with an unquestionable success. During the international expedition the members of the Shipwreck Expeditions association managed to find the ship’s bell, which was one of the main objectives of the expedition. According to the members of the expedition, after obtaining appropriate permissions, the bell will be excavated and handed over to the Maritime Museum in La Valletta.

-- Advertisement --

The third expedition to the wreck of ORP “Kujawiak” began on 5 June. As the participants themselves report, from the very beginning they had to cope with capricious weather, and at times also with equipment problems, which in view of the wreck’s depth of 95 metres, made it very difficult to fulfil the assumed objectives.

“Under the circumstances we didn’t hold out much hope of succeeding. The boys, after a malfunction with their equipment, started commenting that some kind of doom had reached the team,” Piotr Wytykowski reported. “We had about 20 minutes of bottom time to search. Our time underwater was coming to an end and in a few moments we had to prepare for over two hours of decompression. Driven by some premonition I showed my partner with a wave of my hand that we should go to one of the unexplored places on the wreck. Suddenly, I felt a hot shiver of delight. I gave a shout of joy, which did not escape my partner’s attention – to our eyes appeared the ship’s bell”.

Fortunately, at the end of the expedition a dive and exploration was carried out and the ship’s bell was successfully found. Now it is time to go through the formalities and obtain the necessary permits so that the bell can be legally excavated and transferred as an exhibit to the collection of the Maritime Museum in La Valletta.

This year’s expedition team consisted of 14 people. In addition to four representatives from Poland – Roman Zajder, Piotr Wytykowski, Mariusz Borowiak and Robert Piast – there were also representatives from Australia, the USA, England, Italy and Malta.

On 22 September 2014, the Polish expedition “The Hunt for L72″ located and identified the wreck of the Polish destroyer ORP “Kujawiak”. 16 June 1942. The vessel sank off the coast of Malta where she was on escort duty. It was during the protection of one of the transports that the L-72 hit a mine and went to the bottom. According to different sources 12-13 Polish seamen lost their lives on that day.

During her short service, “Kujawiak” participated in missions in the Bristol Channel and the English Channel. The last wartime touch before sinking was the large-scale operation “Harpoon”, during which she escorted supplies to Malta. For those interested in the fate of L-72, we recommend Mariusz Borowiak’s book “Podwodni tropiciele”, whose review you can read here.

The keel for ORP “Kujawiak” was laid on 22 November 1939 in 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 1050t. 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: Shipwreck Expeditions