ORP Mazur
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 ORP Mazur (in 1935-1939) |
|
| Career |  |
|---|---|
| Ordered | |
| Laid down | 1914 |
| Launched: | August 26, 1914 |
| Commissioned | March 23, 1915 |
| Decommissioned | September 1, 1939 |
| Fate | sunk |
| Current position | |
| General characteristics | |
| Displacement: | standard: 340 t full: 421 t tons |
| Length | 62.60 m |
| Beam | 6.20 m |
| Draft | 2.50 m |
| Speed | 27 knots ( km/h) |
| Complement | 80 |
| Armament | 1922:
two 47 mm guns, two torpedo launchers 450 mm |
ORP Mazur was the torpedo boat, then gunnery training ship of the Polish Navy. She was a former German torpedo boat V-105. She took part in the Polish Defensive War and was sunk by German bombers on September 1, 1939, as one of the first two ships in the war.
She was built in 1914 by Stettiner Maschinenbau A.G. Vulcan in Stettin, Germany (now in Poland). She was started for the Dutch Navy order, as Z-1 (along with three sisterships Z-2 - Z-4), but after the outbreak of World War I she was confiscated by Germany and commissioned as a torpedo boat V-105. During a division of the German ships after the war in 1919, she was first assigned to Brasil, but then bought by a British dockyard and finally exchanged with Poland for other torpedo boat, A-69 in 1921. Poland got her sistership, V-108 as well (later Polish ORP Kaszub), and 4 smaller torpedo boats. V-105 was in a bad condition and after some repairs in Rosyth, in September 1921 she was towed from the Great Britain to Gdańsk.
After a refit, she was commissioned in the Polish Navy on August 2, 1922 under a name ORP Mazur (=the one of a folk of Mazurians). She served in a Torpedo Boat Unit (Dywizjon Torpedowców) and wore identification letters MR. In 1931 she was rebuilt to a gunnery training ship, and her armament changed. From 1935 she underwent a modernization, during which the ship lost a second funnel. She returned to service in 1937.
On the first day of World War II, September 1, 1939, ORP Mazur, commanded by Lieutenant Tadeusz Rutkowski, was in a port of Oksywie. At 2 pm she was at a pier, preparing to leave port, when she was attacked by the German bombers. The ship got one close hit and another hit amidships and sunk, still firing at German aircraft. About 40 of crew were killed. She was one of the first two ships sunk during the war (the other was an auxiliary ship ORP Nurek). A wreck was scrapped by the Germans.
[edit] Specifications
- Displacement: standard: 340 t, full: 421 tons
- Length 62.60 m
- Beam 6.20 m
- Draft 2.50 m
- Speed 29 knots (later 20 knots)
- Complement 80
- Propulsion: two steam boilers Yarrow, two steam turbines AEG Vulcan, total: 5500 hp
- Range: 1400 nautic miles at 17 knots, 640 nm at 20 kts
- Armament
- In the German service 1915 - 1919:
- 2 guns 88 mm
- 2 torpedo launchers 450 mm
- In the Polish service 1922-1925:
- 2 guns 47 mm
- 2 torpedo launchers 450 mm
- In 1925-1930:
- 2 guns 75 mm Schneider
- 2 torpedo launchers 450 mm
- As a training ship 1931-1935:
- 4 guns 75 mm Schneider
- 2 machine guns
- In 1935-1939:
- 3 guns 75 mm Schneider
- 1 anti-aircraft automatic gun 40 mm Vickers
- 2 machine guns
- In the German service 1915 - 1919:
