ORP Błyskawica

Listen to the steel first. The deck plates are grey and slightly ridged under your shoes. They are cold when the wind comes off the Baltic. Gulls call over the Southern Pier, halyards tap against masts, and the water slaps quietly against the hull. You are standing on a warship that has been waiting here, at the edge of Gdynia, for decades... and she still looks ready to slip her lines.

This is ORP Błyskawica. The letters ORP stand for a Polish phrase that means Ship of the Republic of Poland. Błyskawica means lightning. The name suits her. She is long and narrow, with a sharp bow and a low, purposeful profile. Destroyers like her were built for speed and aggression. In the 1930s, she was among the fastest warships of her class anywhere in the world.

Here is the first surprise. This proud Polish ship was not built in Poland. She was built in England, at the J. Samuel White shipyard in Cowes, on the Isle of Wight. Poland was a young state again after the First World War. It had a short coastline, a new port here in Gdynia, and few shipyards able to build large modern warships. So the navy ordered two sister destroyers from Britain. Błyskawica was one of them. Her twin was named Grom, which means thunder.

She joined the Polish fleet in the late 1930s. Her original guns came from the Swedish company Bofors, and she was designed to carry a heavy punch for her size. But her career in home waters was short. By the summer of 1939, war with Germany looked very close. The Polish command made a difficult decision. They did not want to lose their best ships in a narrow sea, trapped by a much larger enemy.

In late August 1939, only days before the German invasion, Błyskawica, Grom and a third destroyer, Burza, sailed out of the Baltic. This operation was later called the Peking Plan. The ships crossed to Britain and joined the Royal Navy. Some crew members left families behind in Gdynia. They would not see their home port again for years. Some never returned at all.

From British bases, Błyskawica fought through almost the entire war. She escorted convoys across the cold North Atlantic. She took part in the campaign around Narvik, in Norway, in 1940. Her sister Grom was sunk during that campaign, and many of her sailors died. In the same year, Błyskawica helped cover the evacuation of Allied troops from Dunkirk, on the coast of France.

Now the second surprise, and the story many visitors miss. In May 1942, Błyskawica was back in Cowes for a refit, in the same town where she was born. One night, German bombers attacked the town. The Polish crew stayed on board and fired their guns again and again. They also laid a smoke screen. Many people in Cowes believe the ship helped save the town that night. The connection is still remembered there today.

Later in the war, Błyskawica took part in the Allied landings in Normandy in 1944. She also fought in a night battle against German destroyers in the English Channel. During her years in Britain, she was refitted and rearmed with British guns, partly to face the growing threat from aircraft. So the ship you see today is not exactly the ship that left Gdynia in 1939. Her steel carries the marks of that long war.

After the war, Poland was a different country. A new government held power, and the political situation was uncertain for sailors who had served in the West. Even so, Błyskawica came home to Gdynia in 1947. Some of her wartime sailors returned with her. Others chose to stay abroad. She served in the post-war Polish navy for many years, and then, in 1976, she became a museum ship.

Today she is often described as the oldest surviving destroyer in the world. Take a moment with that idea. Most warships of her generation were scrapped long ago and melted into new steel. This one survived, partly by luck and partly because people in Poland saw her as a symbol. She is part of the Polish Naval Museum, and the white and red naval ensign still flies above her.

As you walk the deck, notice how tight everything is. The gun mounts, the ladders, the rails and the hatches all sit close together. Below deck, the passages feel even narrower. Imagine a full wartime crew living here, in rough Atlantic weather, with the hull rolling and the air smelling of oil, wet wool and cooking. Watch your head on the low doorframes. Sailors once moved through them at a run.

Look up toward the bridge, where officers stood watch in the open air, and then look at the anti-aircraft guns along the deck. Each one tells a small part of the story. Then turn around and look along the pier. Close by is the tall white sailing ship Dar Pomorza, another museum ship. Together they show two sides of Gdynia's life at sea — training under sail and war under steam.

Before you leave, stand at the rail for a minute. The modern city of Gdynia rises behind you, and ferries and yachts move across the bay ahead. Almost everything around you is newer than this ship. As you walk back down the pier, listen again to the gulls and the slap of the water against grey steel. Lightning, they named her. Here she rests, quietly, at the end of a very long voyage.