MS ''Piłsudski'' (later renamed
ORP ''Piłsudski'') was a medium-size
ocean liner of the
Polish Merchant Marine, named for Marshal
Józef Piłsudski
Józef Klemens Piłsudski (; 5 December 1867 – 12 May 1935) was a Polish statesman who served as the Naczelnik państwa, Chief of State (1918–1922) and Marshal of Poland, First Marshal of Second Polish Republic, Poland (from 1920). He was ...
, a national hero of Poland.
History
She was built in Italy by the CRDA yard at Monfalcone, yard number 1126, for Polskie Transatlantyckie Towarzystwo Okrętowe ("Polish Transatlantic Shipping Company Limited" or PTTO), which in 1934 became Gdynia – Ameryka Linie Zeglugowe (Gdynia – America Line), with part of the payment being shipments of coal from Poland. Launched in December 1934, her tonnage was 14,294 tons gross, with a length of and beam of . She was propelled by two diesel engines driving a pair of propellers giving a speed of .
She entered the regular service as a liner on the trans-atlantic route in September 1935, setting sail for a maiden voyage from Gdynia to New York. As a liner, she was very badly damaged by her first ocean storm. In 1939, she was taken over for war service and scheduled to be converted into an armed merchant cruiser. The plans of that conversion were dropped, the ship being instead converted into a
troop transport ship. During her first wartime voyage on 26 November 1939 sailing out of
Newcastle Newcastle usually refers to:
*Newcastle upon Tyne, a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England
*Newcastle-under-Lyme, a town in Staffordshire, England
*Newcastle, New South Wales, a metropolitan area in Australia, named after Newcastle ...
, she struck a mine (most likely) or was torpedoed (lack of confirmation in German sources). Abandoned too soon by her crew, quite capable of being saved, she sank off the
Humber
The Humber is a large tidal estuary on the east coast of Northern England. It is formed at Trent Falls, Faxfleet, by the confluence of the tidal rivers Ouse and Trent. From there to the North Sea, it forms part of the boundary between t ...
.
She was the older
sister ship to Poland's most famous ocean liner, the
MS ''Batory''. The ''Pilsudski's'' first skipper was Master Mariner
Mamert Stankiewicz.
The liner found posthumously its place in the history of Polish literature. In the novel ''Eccentrics'', written by Mr. W. Kowalewski and published by Marginesy-Publishers in 2015, the main character of the novel - a Polish swingman and dancer born in Lemberg, Fabian Apanowicz, takes part in the last peacetime voyage of the ''Pilsudski'' as a member of the ship's band, and after his return to Poland after the war, he tells the story of the unfinished voyage to his six years younger sister Wanda, a dentist in Ciechocinek (cf. W. Kowalewski, Excentrycy/Eccentrics, Marginesy Warsaw 2015, pp. 36–43).
The wreck is located at in .
See also
*
Polish navy
External links
History of M/S Pilsudski and M/S Batory*Official report of the sinking
The MS Piłsudski - "The Polish Titanic" What Happened with the pride of the Polish Navy?
* ''Cruising Ships'', W.H. Mitchell and L. A Sawyer, Doubleday, 1967
* ''Wielka Ksiega Statkow Polskich'', vol 2, J. Micinski, M. Twardowski, B. Huras.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pilsudski
Passenger ships of Poland
Ocean liners
Wreck diving sites in the United Kingdom
Ships built in Monfalcone
Ships built by Cantieri Riuniti dell'Adriatico
1934 ships
Ships of the Gdynia-America Line
Shipwrecks in the North Sea