World War II Subs That Went Missing And Were Never Found

April 2024 ยท 2 minute read

Don't let the fact that the Polish submarine Orzel is on this list fool you. Though it eventually did disappear, the events that led to its ultimate fate were straight out of a particularly impressive wartime thriller. The Orzel's crew and its captain, Jan Grudzinski, didn't particularly care for Nazis, and when Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, they promptly relocated the Orzel to Estonia. Unfortunately, it wasn't any safer there, as the local authorities were too concerned by the Nazis to let the Orzel do its thing. Instead, they captured Grudzinski's crew and started removing the sub's weapons and operational equipment. 

The Estonians thought Grudzinski was fine with this ... which is exactly what he wanted them to think. In reality, he and the crew were busy staging a daring escape plan that involved hostages, a harbor-wide blackout, and a desperate reverse-gear escape under artillery fire after the submarine got stuck. This, however, was just the beginning. They now had to make it to the U.K. with no navigation equipment, in waters that were full of German ships that wanted a word. It took 44 days of movie-worthy close calls and desperation maneuvers, but they ultimately managed to get there. 

The Orzel's heroic escape became an international news story, but unfortunately, the good times didn't last long (via The New York Times). In June 1940, the Orzel and its crew of 54 were reported to have disappeared during a patrol mission in the North Sea.

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