ORP Piorun (G65)

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ORP Piorun was an N-class destroyer used by the Polish Navy during the Second World War. The name means "Thunderbolt".

Piorun was built by John Brown & Company of Clydebank, Glasgow: she had been laid down in July 1939, launched on 7 May 1940 and completed on 4 November 1940.

Originally commissioned into the Royal Navy as HMS Nerissa, she was transferred to the Polish Navy as a replacement for the destroyer ORP Grom which had been lost off the Norwegian coast on 5 May 1940.

She was based in Great Britain and was commanded by Commander Plawski.

On 13th-15th March 1941, she took part in the defence of Clydebank against Luftwaffe air raids, as she happened to be undergoing repairs in John Brown's shipyard. Many people remembered that she put up a terrific barrage on the first night, which may have caused the shipyard to get off comparatively lightly. A memorial to the crew of the ship was later erected in Clydebank.

In May 1941 she was escorting convoy WS-8B, along with four Royal Navy destroyers, when they were ordered to leave the convoy to take part in the pursuit of the German battleship Bismarck. Piorun took part, along with the British destroyers, in the shadowing of and torpedo attacks on the Bismarck the night before she was sunk, and at one point they had an exchange of fire for half an hour. According to one report (detailed at the Auschwitz I exhibition, Oświęcim, Poland), Plawski transmitted the message "I am a Pole" before commencing fire on the Bismarck. Piorun was very low on fuel, so she was ordered home before the Bismarck was sunk.

She subsequently operated in the Mediterranean and took part in Operation Halberd, one of the Malta convoys and Operation Husky, the invasion of Sicily. In 1944 she was transferred to the Home Fleet.

She was returned to the Royal Navy in 1946, renamed HMS Noble and scrapped in 1955.