Wreck of Polish navy ship sunk at start of WWII found on riverbed

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Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and is published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Amateur divers have located the wreck of a navy ship that may have been deliberately sunk by Poland in 1939 to prevent it from falling into the hands of the invading Nazi-German forces.

The find was made in the Narew river near Modlin Fortress, just outside Warsaw, which served as a defensive citadel for Polish forces in 1939. It was identified using sonar images that led earlier this month to the discovery of a nameplate from the ship’s steam boiler.

The wreck is that of the armed tugboat Hetman Żółkiewski, named after Stanisław Żółkiewski, a Polish nobleman and military commander from the time of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the 16th to 17th century.

Sławomir Kaliński, one of the divers from the Triglav Exploration and Prospecting Group (GEPST) who made the discovery, told the Polish Press Agency (PAP) that identifying the ship took around three years in total.

“Our progress was affected by the capricious nature of the Narew river, the state of its water and the shifting bottom,” he explained. Sonar images indicated six submerged vessels, partially covered by sand or gravel. One of them was the Hetman Żółkiewski.

During exploration operations on 5 October, Artur Sobczak of the GEPST divers team found a nameplate from the vessel’s steam boiler, hence confirming the discovery of the ship. The item was handed to the conservator of monuments and artefacts of Mazowieckie province.

According to Kaliński, the Polish Naval Museum has expressed interest in obtaining further artefacts from the vessel, as it does not have any exhibits related to the river flotillas of the interwar Polish Republic.

But the divers warn that retrieving the vessel itself will be a difficult task due to it being embedded in the riverbed at a depth of up to four metres and partially covered with sand or gravel.

The wreckage shows signs of having been damaged by an explosion, but the exact circumstances of its sinking are unclear. However, Kaliński and his team believe it was one of a number of ships deliberately sunk to prevent them and their contents falling into German hands.

Before being sunk, the vessel had a rich history. It was built in 1887 in Warsaw and, under the name Henryk, used for navigation on the Vistula River, being able to carry around 150 passengers and 25 tonnes of cargo.

At the end of the 19th century, it was sold to Russia , sailing the Pripyat river as Zwiezda (meaning “Star” in Russian). It was captured by Polish forces in 1920 during the Polish-Ukrainian Kyiv offensive of the Polish-Soviet war.

The ship was later used as floating barracks and, after being given a steam engine and named Gwiazda (meaning “Star” in Polish), it was turned into an armed tugboat. In the 1930s it was handed over to a battalion stationed in Modlin Fortress, where it served until the outbreak of war.

Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Main image credit: Wojsyl/Wikimedia Commons (under CC BY-SA 3.0)

Agata Pyka

Agata Pyka is an assistant editor at Notes from Poland. She is a journalist and a political communication student at the University of Amsterdam. She specialises in Polish and European politics as well as investigative journalism and has previously written for Euractiv and The European Correspondent.