Battle of Hel

A Polish soldier during the '39 campaign.

Date	9 September – 2 October 1939
Location	Hel Peninsula, Pomeranian Voivodeship, Poland
Result	German victory

Belligerents

Germany

Poland

Commanders and leaders

Friedrich-Georg Eberhardt

Józef Unrug

Włodzimierz Steyer

Adam Mohuczy

Strength

38,000 infantry
2 pre-dreadnoughts
2 destroyers

2,800
46 guns
1 destroyer
1 minelayer
1 patrol boat

Casualties and losses

Luftwaffe: 46–53 aircraft
Heer: unknown
Kriegsmarine:
2 destroyers damaged,
1 pre-dreadnought lightly damaged

Unknown human losses
1 destroyer sunk
1 minelayer sunk

The Battle of Hel was one of the longest battles of the Invasion of Poland during World War II.

The Hel Peninsula, together with the town of Hel, was the pocket of Polish Army resistance that held out the longest against the German invasion. Approximately 2,800 soldiers of the Fortified Region Hel unit (Helski Rejon Umocniony), part of the Coastal Defence Group (Grupa Obrony Wybrzeża) under Włodzimierz Steyer, defended the area against overwhelming odds from 9 September until 2 October 1939, when they surrendered.

There was a Polish military port in Hel from 1928, and the Polish military had been in control of the northern part of the peninsula since the 1920s. In 1936 the northern section of the Hel peninsula was officially named the Hel Fortified Area (Helski Rejon Umocniony). Approximately 2,800 soldiers were stationed in the area, and the Fortified Region included three coastal (anti-ship) and anti-air gun batteries. The coastal batteries were divided into one 4 × 152 mm battery, two older 2 × 105 mm batteries and three batteries with 8 × 75 mm guns in total. Anti-air batteries had 6 × 75 mm and 8 × 40 mm guns, and two 120 cm searchlights.

Hel was the target of Luftwaffe air attacks from the first day of the invasion (1 September). The German army forced Polish units of Armia Pomorze to retreat from the Danzig Corridor in the first week of September, and began the assault on the Polish forces in Hel on 9 September. After Armia Pomorze was defeated in the Battle of Tuchola Forest, and other Polish strongholds on the coast capitulated (Battle of Westerplatte, Battle of Gdynia and Battle of Kępa Oksywska), from 20 September onward Hel was the only viable pocket of Polish resistance in northern Poland.

...
Wikipedia