Orzel incident

Orzeł Incident

The Orzeł incident covered in the Estonian newspaper "Uus Eesti" (New Estonia).
Date	18 September 1939
Location	Tallinn, Estonia
Cause	Polish submarine interned by neutral Estonia
Outcome	Polish submarine escapes
2 Estonian guards captured
Submarine Orzeł damaged

The Orzeł incident occurred at the beginning of World War II. The Polish submarine ORP Orzeł escaped from Tallinn in then-neutral Estonia to the United Kingdom. The Soviet Union used the incident as a pretext to justify the eventual occupation of Estonia.

Orzeł was docked at Oksywie when Nazi Germany attacked Poland, setting off World War II. The submarine initially participated in Operation Worek, but withdrew from the Polish coast on 4 September as the situation devolved. Damaged by German minesweepers and leaking oil, the decision was made to head for Tallinn, which was reached on 14 September 1939 at about 01:30.Lieutenant-Commander Henryk Kłoczkowski, the commanding officer, was taken to a hospital the next day for treatment of the unidentified illness he had been suffering from since 8 September.

Section XIII, Article 8 of the Hague Convention of 1907 required that a neutral government had a duty "to prevent the departure from its jurisdiction of any vessel intended to cruise, or engage in hostile operations" against another government with which the neutral was not at war. Still, a ship could only be interned after a period of 24 hours. Initially, the Estonians were quite accommodating of Orzel, assisting with the repair of a damaged compressor. At the insistence of the Germans, Estonian military authorities boarded the ship, interned the crew, confiscated all the navigation aids and maps, and commenced dismantling all the armaments. An Estonian officer then removed the naval ensign at the submarine's stern.

The crew of ORP Orzeł conspired to escape under the new command of its chief officer, Lt. Jan Grudziński, and its new first officer, Lieutenant Andzej Piasecki. This started with Grudziński's sabotage of the torpedo hoist on 16 September, preventing the Estonians from removing the six aft torpedoes. Since it was a Sunday, another one couldn't be immediately acquired. Meanwhile, Boatswain Wladyslaw Narkiewicz took a small boat around the harbour. Under the guise of fishing, he covertly measured the depth of the planned escape route. Another sailor sabotaged the submarine's mooring lines.