Name ORP Orzeł Operator Polish Navy Laid down 27 July 1954 Launched 30 November 1954 Beam 6.7 m | Namesake ORP Orzeł (1938) Yard number 611 Construction started 27 July 1954 Length 76 m | |
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Commissioned 30 July 1955 to Soviet Navy Builder Krasnoye Sormovo Factory No. 112 | ||
ORP Orzeł a Polish Navy submarine of the Project 613 (Whiskey-class) . She was built in the Soviet Union and was commissioned by the Polish Navy in 1962. She served under the code designation 292 (317 for a brief period) and was decommissioned in 1983. In 1968, during Warsaw Pact fleet exercise on Barents Sea, together with the other Polish submarine ORP Kondor, she avoided detection by huge Soviet and East Germany ASW forces, consisting of 300 ships - including nuclear submarines - and about 500 aircraft, and unnoticed entered into the biggest Soviet naval base in Murmansk. A year later, guided by radio-guidance from Poland, Orzeł intercepted in the North Sea the Soviet Sverdlov class cruiser and torpedoed her by dummy torpedoes. In implementing the Warsaw Pact's Cold War strategy, she also led patrols in the North Atlantic, doing jobs there such as a continuous reconnaissance in close distance to NATO's naval bases, including the most important U.S. strategic submarine base outside United States - Holy Loch in Scotland and also the base of Londonderry in Northern Ireland. She was also exercising the breaking of western marine communication lines in the North Atlantic, as well as carrying out tasks in the North Atlantic training programs, including "Use of weapons and overcome ASW forces exercise program".
On 30 December 1983 she was decommissioned due to poor condition of her hull, after a years of service, and scrapped in 1986. During her service, the ORP Orzeł was four times awarded as The Best Ship of Polish Navy (1963, 1965, 1972 and 1977).