...we may learn to know, what has happened to the first 'Orzel'! The "Panorama", as the local news service of the Gdansk TV is called, published on the 31st of May the news about probable discovery of the famous Wreck.
The ORP "Orzel" (yard No. 205) was herself a Revelation. When entering the service She had undoubtedly been one of the most advanced sumbarines of Her type and time in Europe. She had excellent Crew, who managed to turn that mass of steel into a weapon just lethal to any enemy within but six months.
The said Crew of the "Orzel" showed Their fighting spirit in mid-September '39, challenging the enemy forces that tried to tam the Polish 'Ruler of the Air'.
For that we love Her. And right we are - for which one of all the other submarines did achieve so much and so fast??
Our 'Revelation' is said to have been designed to the prosaic purpose of fighting Soviet dreadnought battleships on the Baltic Sea - but after war She became (posthumously) 'main character' of Poland's unquestionably best maritime picture ever made. None of later Polish pictures of the sort has grown half up the 'Orzel's level so far, either few - if any - European pictures have done so.
From my seat in the cinema I see the Polish picture art and industry lose its position, this only too clear visible in latest works, hardly worth seeing. Example here be that piece of 'mouldy and old dough', the 'City From the Sea'. The possible present remake of 'Orzel' and Her Crew's story, if made, would surely have sunk head-on into the 'moor' of the famous Soviet Zhdanov-provocation (a piece of favourite topics for our picture makers!) or turned to a (now) rather boring, ex-post investigation into the famous internment, or the treason of Cdr. Kloczkowski. A clear evidece of this is to me that complete failure of a document made once by Mr. Woloszanski.
By the way, all those 'sequels' or 'remakes' of successful pictures are (almost en masse, to put it French) simply total failures.
Mr. Buczkowski, the Director, has avoided all the traps, giving us a real 'glass of wine', or - proudly ageing - piece of mastery. The picture still stands with colours flying to any criticism, catches the attention and makes the viewer simply proud of being Polish, all that to this day, more than half a century after the 'debut'! Being not a document, the picture brings much fiction, but is remembered and desired to watch again. That was the doing of the Director, the Cast, the Team, and - last but not least - the contemporary Headquarters of the Polish Navy, who gave their consent to use the 'Orzel' younger sister boat 'Sep' from Rotterdam as a film set. The latter made the part worth an Oscar! Regrettably, that very prize cannot be awarded ex post...
First of all, remembered is that 'polite' [but fictious] dialogue between the Skipper of the 'Orzel' and the 'assholes' from the German patrol boat, when passing Denmark Straits...
The ORP "Orzeł", our 'Revelation' (that received a virtual Monument in the shape of a WWWeb page!) at long, long last, after ca 73 years, has a chance now to put back symbolically to her base and thus to finish Her seventh patrol.
She perished Invincible.
I deeply trust, that when arriving - she shall be proudly and worthly welcomed by all of us, as she simply deserves it.
