A bit of melting ice in Cold War times

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greendragon
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Joined: Sat Sep 14, 2019 6:16 am

A bit of melting ice in Cold War times

Unread post by greendragon »

When iron grip of the then Polish Communist gvt - as forced by Soviet Russia - after WW2 was laxed RN paid first visit to its former trusty ally on seas - to Poland.
HMS Glasgow was designed to visit Polish port of Gdynia which was visited on 1-4 July 1955.
The crew was visiting Polish Baltic shore towns, the Commander was visiting the Polish General Staff in Warsaw.

In September 1955 it was agreed that two PLN destroyers - both veterans of WW2 -ORP Blyskawica and ORP Burza would re-visiting HM Navy at its base at Portsmouth.
It was the first visit of PLN and more broadly "People Republic of Poland" Armed Forces to a NATO lands.
On the 08 SEP both destroyers entered the Portsmouth - C-in-C in Portmouth was salued with guns and were moored at South Railway Jetty.
Being on the verge of scrap value in 1951 and towed from the UK to Gdynia, ORP Burza was restored to operational (training AA ship) status, went to sea and without any engineering problems reached British shores.
Admiral of Fleet Sir George Creasy was the 1st DF commander to which three Polish destroyers were attached in 1939 and in 1955 he visited PLN ships. Attached photos show he was really delighted.
So were all on deck because the photo shows all have smiling faces.
Apparently for him it was exiting time seeing the ships he was commanded - and still living. As we know almost all the 1st DF(G-class) ships were sunk. The only survivor of the Gs was ORP Garland.
There is detailed and long story of how the visit took place in great atmosphere of friendship.
On the last day of visit there was a party on the Blyskawica deck attended by officials and guests from Cowes where Blyskawica was built in Samuel-White dockyard - the Chairmen and workers attended.

Should be mentioned that a football match between the crews of PLN ships and HM was won by the Polish 6 to 1.
Some used to say it was due to the courtessy of the Brits but it is of course not true.

Note a significant change to ORP Burza look. One stack replaced two of her oryginal no 2and3 stacks making her similar to Blyskawica while no 1 was still in existence hidden behind the superstructure.
There are very few photos of Burza in her escort duty configuration. On one it looks like she was a "fourstacker" if one would tell her 271 "lantren" radar as a stack.

gd
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