Quote:
Originally Posted by gap
According to the info that I was able collect from the net, Polish never surrendered formally to German (neither to Russian, for this matter) invaders. Hence, Germany could not issue any puppet government there and they ruled directly on the occupied Poland. As a consequence, I think that around Polish ports shipping traffic was made mostly of German (and other Axis nations's) ships, but it is reasonable that some ships kept sailing around Polish coastal waters under their national flag, just as you're suggesting.
As for "Free Poland" traffic, please read carefully this short article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_...ld_War_II#Navy
seems that most of Polish Navy was made up of ships provided by British after the beginning of the war. Polish were heavily invoved alongside Allied Navies both in convoys escorting and in task forces operations mostly in Atlantic Ocean, Baltic, North and Mediterranean Sea (notably they partecipated to the operation agaist German Carrier Bismarck!).
Besides this, according to the same article, Polish Merchant Fleet had an important role in the history of the conflict. Though, in wich convoys Polish merchants were found it is something out of my (limited) knowledge. I'll try to do so extra research on it if you're interested  |
This is the list of Polish merchant ships I know, hit by U-boats in convoys:
PADEREWSKI motor merchant sunk 30 Dec 1942 by U-214 4,426 tons
ROZEWIE Motor merchant sunk 6 Aug 1942 by U-66 766 tons
WARSAW steam merchant sunk 26 Dec 1941 by U-559 2,487 tons
ZAGLOBA steam merchant sunk 6 Feb 1943 by U-262 2,864 tons
(straggler from convoy SC-118)
In another book I read that the only survivor from HMCS St.Croix town class destroyer was rescued by Polish merchant WISLA in 1943 convoy ON202
So there were some Polish merchant units by the 1939 in foreign ports, that later took part in convoys.
I hope it helps somehow