ORP Grom (1936)

Template:Short description Template:Other ships Template:Use dmy dates Template:More citations needed Template:Infobox ship ORP Grom was the lead ship of her class of destroyers serving in the Polish Navy during World War II. She was named after the Polish word for Thunder or Thunderbolt, while her sister ship Template:ORP translates to lightning bolt.

Design

Grom was thought of as a large destroyer, similar to flotilla leaders. She and sister ship ORP Błyskawica were to support the outdated French-built Template:ORP and Template:ORP in the role of the core of the Polish Navy in a possible conflict. As Poland had only one major seaport, the main task of the Polish naval forces was to secure supplies shipment to and from allied countries. Because of that, the Grom class was designed to fulfill both the role of shore defence and convoy escort and was supposed to be stronger than single enemy destroyers.

Two Parsons steam turbines of Template:Convert altogether, three boilers and two shafts allowed Grom to travel at Template:Convert, faster than the contemporary designs like the US Template:Sclass and Template:Sclasses, the British Template:Sclass2, or the German Template:Sclass2s. Also, as it was not clear whether the ships would be used to secure convoys to the Polish port of Gdynia or the Romanian port of Constanţa (through the Romanian Bridgehead), the possible range was much larger than in the case of destroyers designed exclusively for the Baltic Sea. The ship had an effective range of Template:Convert at Template:Convert.

Construction and career

Grom was ordered from the British J. Samuel White shipyard in Cowes and was laid down in 1935. The destroyer was commissioned in 1937.

The commanders of the ship were:

• Lieutenant Commander Stanisław Hryniewiecki - January 25, 1937 - June 20, 1938
• Commander Aleksander Hulewicz - March 13 or. June 20, 1938 - May 4, 1940

On 30 August 1939, the Polish destroyers Template:ORP, Template:ORP, and Grom were ordered to activate the Peking Plan, and the warships headed for Great Britain, from where they were to operate as convoy escorts. On 1 September 1939, Polish destroyers met with the British destroyers Template:HMS and Template:HMS. The British ships led the Polish flotilla to Leith, and in the night the Polish destroyers came to Rosyth.

During her operations in the Norwegian Campaign, Grom was ranked by the German soldiers as probably the most hated of all the Allied ships deployed to the area.<ref name="kampf"/> This hatred was founded on the fact that Grom took an intense interest in all hostile movements on shore and was reputed to spend hours lurking the coast in order to harass German forces. On 4 May 1940, Grom carried out what turned out to be the last of her many naval gunfire support missions in the Narvik area in the Rombaken fjord. She was attacked by a Heinkel He 111 bomber from Kampfgeschwader 100 (piloted by Lt. Korthals).<ref name=chrono/> Grom was hit by two bombs and sank after internal explosion.<ref name="GaumontNewsreel"/>

The wreck was never raised and it was not until 6 October 1986 that it was explored by divers for the first time.<ref name=wrecksite/>

War memorial

ORP Grom's war memorial.

A war memorial for Polish soldiers and sailors who fell during the Battles of Narvik was erected in 1979 on the 40th anniversary of the outbreak of the second world war. The memorial is located in Groms plass in Narvik, a park named after Grom.<ref name="gromsplass"/>