In 1942 the ORZEL her navigation officer, Lieutenant Mokrski PN, introduced the improvised ad-hoc maps to Allied Naval Officers . The maps were admired by them, and the person behind the introduction was another Naval officer, Stanislaw Pierzchlewski.
In summer ‘93 a wreck of a submarine was found to the west of Egersund, lying on the seabed at the depth of 180 metres (ca. 590’). The OID Directorate of Norway immediately began her identification. Originally it was assumed the wreck could be either the Polish Submarine ORZEL, or the Dutch one – O-22, as both of them were largely similar. After detailed analysis of the video tapes and more investigation on the site the wreck was identified as that of the HNlM Submarine O-22, sunk probably on the 8th of Nov. 1940 by German Naval vessels – the minelayer M-144 and submarine chaser UJ-177.
On the 17th of May 1992 in one of the parks in Lillesand, Norway, a little monument was unveiled, dedicated to the memory of the ORZEL and of those who perished in the troopship RIO DE JANEIRO. The proposal came from the reserve officers of the Royal Norwegian Navy. The plaque on the monument carries the message in Norse language, which translated into English runs this way:
To the memory of the Crew of Polish Submarine ORZEL,
who sank the German troopship RIO DE JANEIRO
on the 8th of Apr. 1940 off Lillesand.
There is also a monument to the Polish Submarine ORZEL erected in Tallinn (Estonia). We do not know, what a message is placed on it. Usually monuments to famous ships are erected in their own countries , but the ORZEL has at least two of them abroad.
After the fall of the Soviet Union documents were found stating that the Soviet Submarine Shcha-303 had attacked two merchantmen late in September 1939. The matter, not even touched during Communist regime in Poland, was, that the ships were attacked off Tallinn on the 19th of Sep. 1939. The apparent purpose was to sink neutral ships and to prevent ORZEL from leaving the Baltic Sea.
Many pages had been written about the ORZEL so far, but the cause of her loss and the place where she rests remain unknown. It is even assumed, the ORZEL was sent on a clandestine mission back into the Baltic Sea, where she might have been sunk or captured by the Germans, who then could have murdered her entire crew. A time after sinking of the RIO DE JANEIRO, the Germans informed on the capture of the ship whose crew had been allegedly interned; no reliable data are known to support this. According to later data from an International Red Cross office, the family of a member of ORZEL’s crew should have been informed, their relative had fallen in the Pacific in 1942. Could the ORZEL have fought against the Japanese?
The members of the ORZEL her crew who did not take part in her last patrol, were the following: Sub-Lieut. Stanislaw Pierzchlewski PN, Midshipman Eryk Sopocko, Petty Officer Wladyslaw Oczkowski Petty Officer Czeslaw Olesinski, Petty Officer Marek Oldakowski, Junior Petty Officer Alojzy Grewka, Junior Petty Officer Feliks Prządak and Able Seaman Antoni Szymczak . Out of these, only the late Mr. Feliks Przadak returned to Poland after the war, during which he saw action in other Polish submarines. Mr Przadak wrote a number of articles for Polish press and magazines, of which the best-known is that entitled „Truth More Fascinating Than The Imagination”. He wrote also a book, which had never been published so far.
Midshipman E. Sopocko, a talented author born in 1919, took part in one of ORZEL’s patrols, being the first journalist to do so during the WW2. He then wrote a book entitled: „ORZEL’s Patrol – the Story of a Ship”. Regretfully, both Sopocko and Pierzchlewski perished in Nov. 1943 in the Polish destroyer ORKAN, torpedoed off Iceland by the German U-boat U-378. The destroyer was the Polish Navy’s heaviest loss during the WW2, having taken 200 people of her crew with her .
After ORZEL’s escape from Tallinn, the Swedes interned the 3 Polish subs: the SEP, the RYS and the ZBIK. After entering neutral ports the crews of the subs were not able to repair their damages so as to leave within 24 hours, a span of time allowed for and guaranteed for such an emergency-visit by international law of war.
