INTRODUCTION

My father, Czeslaw Guzenda, served on ORP Błyskawica in World War II. He was the Ship's Joiner, rising to the rank of Chief Petty Officer.

The Polish destroyer ORP Błyskawica was the most modern destroyer in the World at the start of World War II (WWII), having been recently delivered by the British shipyard John Samuel White's in Cowes, Isle of Wight. Sister ships ORPs Błyskawica and Grom each displaced 2,140 tons, were 377 feet long with a beam of 37 feet, draft of 11 feet and a top speed of 39 knots.

On 30 August 1939, the Błyskawica, her sister ship Grom and the destroyer Burza were dispatched from the Baltic Sea to Britain to avoid open conflict with Germany. She served with the Allied Forces throughout WWII in the Baltic, North Atlantic (on Atlantic and Arctic convoy duties) and the Mediterranean. She was at both the Dunkirk withdrawals and the D-Day invasion. She is now in a museum in Gdansk, Poland and is the World's oldest preserved destroyer.

ARCTIC STAR

If anybody has, or had, a family member, who was in the crew of ORP Błyskawica during WWII and you have successfully applied for the Arctic Star, please contact me using the email form in the Contact Us section. I have verified that she was operational and in combat North of the Arctic Circle for about a month in early 1940 in two fjords near Narvik.