ORP "Blind" returns to Poland. The End of War and the Beginning of a New Reality [Part 4]

After the war ended, ORP Lightning She returned to Poland as one of the most well-deserved ships of the Polish Navy. However, it was not a simple finale of the story of victory. Before the destroyer there was still a long and difficult chapter – the service in the realities of the Polish People's Republic, the tragedy of 1967 and the second life in the role of a ship-museum.

Back to a country that wasn't the same anymore

And so we are approaching the end of the story of one of the most important ships in the history of the Polish Navy. Only two years after the end of World War II ORP Lightning She returned to Poland, entering Gdynia on 4 July 1947. For many sailors, it was a special moment – after years of service alongside the Royal Navy they returned to their homeland, for which they fought in the Atlantic and Western European waters. However, they returned to Poland, whose post-war fate was doomed without their participation. The decisions made in Yalta opened the way to almost half a century of submission of the country to the Soviet Union – and showed how bitter the payment for loyalty to allies can be.

The harbor, the waterfront and the city itself looked different than before the war. For some officers and sailors it was a bitter return to a country that after the war found itself in a completely new political reality.

Still, ORP Lightning still remained a symbol of the continuity of the pre-war Polish Navy. The destroyer, who survived the Atlantic, German raids and the heaviest years of war, returned to Gdynia under the white-red flag – as one of the few witnesses of the world who had just left history.

A New Reality and a Difficult Postwar Chapter

Return of the ORP Lightning to the country did not mean a simple closure of war history. The ship returned to the Navy, but it was already a Navy operating in completely different political realities. Part of the pre-war officer and naval staff, especially those associated with the Polish Armed Forces in the West, was under pressure from the new system. For many people of the sea, postwar reality proved more difficult than they could have imagined at the end of the war.

Alone Lightning However, the fleet was still needed. She was a ship of immense symbolic value, but also an individual that could be used further in training and on-going service. In the reality of the PRL, the destroyer entered the next stage of operation — no longer as a battleship in the Atlantic, but as an important part of the reconstruction of the post-war potential of the Navy.

Tragic August 1967

One of the most painful dates in the history of the ORP Lightning, was August 9, 1967. That day, the destroyer went out into the sea for another team exercise of the Destroyer Squadron. He had already had three decades of service – the Atlantic, Narvik, convoy escorts, World War II fighting and postwar years in the Navy. For part of the crew, he was a legend, for others he was simply a place of daily service.

On that day, however, there was a tragedy that was forever recorded in the history of the destroyer.

In one of the boiler rooms, the high pressure steam line broke. The hot couple filled the room immediately. A total of seven crew members were killed: four died on site, three more died despite assistance.

For the Navy, it was a huge shock. The accident investigation committee pointed to the progressive exploitation of the destroyer's installations and mechanisms. ORP Lightning It remained a symbol of the war history of the Polish fleet, but it became clear that the era of this ship was slowly coming to an end.

In practice, the tragedy of August 1967 became the beginning of the end of the active service of the destroyer at sea.

The last chapter of service before the second life in Gdynia

After the 1967 accident, the destroyer was not fully renovated. Experts pointed to excessive use of mechanisms and devices, therefore further operation of the ORP Lightning as a linear ship, she lost her justification. On June 13, 1969, the unit was towed to the Świnoujście and returned to Gryfia shipyard, where it was adapted to serve with a smaller crew. In December of the same year, the ship was reclassified as an anti-aircraft defense vessel and assigned to the 8th Coast Defence Fleet.

This was the last chapter of the ORP service Lightning before returning to Gdynia. In Świnoujście the ship was stationed first in the Coal Basin, later in the Piast Canal, performing tasks related to anti-aircraft defense and training of specialists. However, he no longer went out to sea as a destroyer. Its role became increasingly steady, subject to the current needs of the fleet.

Eventually, the decision was made to preserve the destroyer for future generations. Since May 1, 1976 Lightning was made available as a ship-museum in Gdynia, replacing the ORP Storm in this role. On this last unit on June 28, the same year the flag was abandoned. From that moment on, the second life of the ORP Lightning began – not as a ship intended to serve at sea, but as places of remembrance of people, war and the history of the Polish flag of war.

Over seven million tourists on board

Over seven million people visited her deck for half a century. It is the number that best shows that it is not only a historic destroyer moored by the waterfront, but one of the most important memorial sites connected with the history of the Polish Navy.

Today's ORP Lightning still remains part of the Polish Navy – with its own crew, commander and place in the structure of the fleet. It is. ship-museumBut not a dead exhibit.

Millions have passed through this destroyer's deck since the flag was fasted. Some have come to see a legendary destroyer. Others – touch a fragment of history, which, despite the passage of years, remains alive. Bo ORP Lightning It's not just steel, it's working and it's a side number. This is a story about a country that wanted to have its own fleet, about sailors who fought far from the country, and about a ship that survived World War II, the PRL, the Cold War and subsequent changes in the era.

Only Polish ship with Order Virtuti Militari

In ORP History Lightning A special place also occupies on June 28, 1987. In the 50's service under the white-red flag, the ship was awarded the Golden Cross of the Order of Virtuti Militari. This award was unique because the Polish destroyer remains the only Polish ship awarded this award. In this way, not only the destroyer himself was symbolically honored, but above all the generations of sailors who created his war and postwar history.

Why ORP Lightning She's still needed.

Therefore, the presence of the ORP Lightning in Gdynia is of greater importance than the museum exposition. It is one of the last material witnesses of the pre-war Polish Navy and a ship which still reminds that the history of the Polish flag of war does not end in archives.

Dear Reader, at the end of this interesting story I have a confession to make. ORP History Lightning I knew, I heard about her service during the Second Dawn War and a unique place in the history of the Polish fleet. However, it was only after working on this four-part cycle that showed me how many dramas, decisions, people and symbols are hiding behind a ship that has been standing at the Pomeranian Coast in Gdynia for years.

It wouldn't be this series if it wasn't for Monica the Quail who talked me into describing this story and who's been supporting me every day working on the Shipyard Portal. It is she who is responsible for historical texts and can draw from the past topics that we forget too easily.

Because not a lot of people, walking past the ORP LightningHe's really thinking about how much history this hull covers. And it is a story from which every Pole should be proud – the story of a ship built for the Second Republic, tested in war, saved after its completion and preserved for subsequent generations.

ORP Lightning still stands at the Gdynia wharf – visible, accessible and needed. Not only as a monument to the ship art of that era, but as a witness to the Polish ambition of the sea, war service and memory, which must not be brought only to dates in school textbooks.