Action off Hel

3 September 1939, Hel naval base, Bay of Danzig

German victory; Wicher and Gryf sunk by bombers after driving off the destroyers

By the third day of the war what was left of the Polish fleet in the Baltic was penned in at Hel, at the tip of its long sandy peninsula. That morning the German destroyers Leberecht Maass and Wolfgang Zenker came in to shell the harbour. The destroyer Wicher and the minelayer Gryf, moored as floating batteries, fired back with the shore guns, and Gryf hit Leberecht Maass twice; the Germans made smoke and drew off. In the afternoon dive bombers came back in force. Wicher was hit four times and sank in the harbour, and Gryf was sunk at her moorings. Their crews went ashore to fight with the garrison, which held Hel until 2 October, the last organised Polish resistance on the coast.