Westerplatte
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| Polish September Campaign |
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Westerplatte is a peninsula in Gdańsk, Poland, at an estuary of the Dead Vistula (one of the Vistula delta estuaries), in the Gdańsk harbour channel. From 1926 - 1939 a Polish Military Transit Depot was located there, on a territory of the Free City of Danzig (now Gdańsk).
It is famous as the place of battle of Westerplatte, one of the first - and longest - battles of the Polish September Campaign in 1939.
The transit depot
In 1925 the Council of the League of Nations allowed Poland to keep 88 soldiers on Westerplatte. By September 1939 the crew of Westerplatte had increased to 182 soldiers. They were armed with one 75 mm field gun, two 37 mm Bofors antitank guns, four mortars and a number of medium machine guns. There were no real fortifications, only several concrete blockhouses hidden in the island's forest. The Polish garrison was separated from Freie Stadt Danzig (Gdańsk) city by the harbour channel, with only a small pier connecting them to the mainland. In case of war, the defenders were supposed to withstand a sustained attack for 12 hours.
The Polish garrison's commanding officer was Major Henryk Sucharski, the executive officer was Captain Franciszek Dąbrowski (according to recent opinions, from 2 September Captain Dąbrowski was also the actual commander, following Sucharski's nervous breakdown).
Battle of Westerplatte
At the end of August 1939 the German pre-Dreadnought battleship Schleswig-Holstein came to Danzig (Gdańsk) under the pretext of a courtesy visit and anchored in the channel near Westerplatte. On 1 September 1939, at 0445 local time, as Germany began its invasion of Poland, Schleswig-Holstein started to shell the Polish garrison with its 280 mm and 150 mm guns. This was followed by an attack by German naval infantry who were hoping for an easy victory, but were repelled with Polish small arms and machine gun fire. Another two assaults that day were repelled as well, with the Germans suffering unexpected losses. However, the only Polish 75 mm gun was destroyed after firing 28 shells at German positions across the channel.
Over the coming days, the Germans repeatedly bombarded Westerplatte with naval and heavy field artillery (including 210 mm howitzers) along with dive-bombing raids by Junkers Ju 87 Stukas. Repeated attacks by German marines, SS Heimwehr Danzig (Danzig homeland protection) and combat engineers were repelled by the Poles for seven days. Finally, the Westerplatte garrison, who were now exhausted - with many defenders severely wounded - as well as being short on food, water, ammunition and medical supplies, surrendered on 7 September.
Approximately 2,600 German soldiers were engaged in action against the 205 strong Polish garrison. The exact number of German losses remains unknown or undisclosed. Polish casaulties were much lower - 14 killed and 53 wounded out of 205 soldiers defending the post. An additional victim, Sergeant Kazimierz Rasiński, the radio-telephone operator, was murdered after the capitulation after refusing to give in the radio codes to the Germans.
The ruins of the island's barracks and blockhouses are still there. After the war one of the barracks has been converted into a museum - two shells from the Schleswig-Holstein prop up its entrance.
Polish poet Konstanty Ildefons Gałczyński wrote a widely known poem about this battle (A Song of the Soldiers of Westerplatte, Pieśń o żołnierzach Westerplatte).
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