Some of my favorite footage from WW2 show the reality of what these ships looked like in combat—
****************************************************
The Battle of the Westerplatte peninsula is generally considered the opening act of WWIl and the first combat between German and Polish forces on September 1st, 1939. The Polish demanded a place to build an ammunitions depot from the League of Nations since 1920, and in March 1924, they were given an area on the Westerplatte peninsula to build such a depot. The League of Nations allowed 90 Polish soldiers to be stationed there. On September 1st, at around 4:45 -4:48 am, the German ship Schleswig-Holstein, a line ship from 1906 which was used as a training ship and had officially been sent to a friendly visit to Danzig (but was intended to bomb the city when war broke out), attacked the Polish ammunition depot. Despite heavy bombardments by German ships and planes, the following German infantry attack was badly prepared, with heavy losses amongst the German naval infantry and SS-militia. The Polish Garrison capitulated on September 7th, having lost only 15 men, while inflicting around 300 casualties among the Germans.
Source: YouTube German WWII Archive
Source: Esketamine77
20 Comments
the good old days. no drones in sight.
Wild how close they are.
Poland has such an insane history. Fascinating stuff I’ve only recently discovered.
I love being Polonia
Man, being that close to the main guns firing must be deafening
You gotta feel for the Poles.
Got attacked by Nazis from the west and Soviets from the east that were in cahoots with one another.
What a world it was.
You can go here in Gdansk, they have a nice memorial there looking over the dock, and some of the bunkers are still there too.
The ship was actually allowed into the polish port city to celebrate some traditional holiday incant remember off the top of my head though.. then once inside the port city they opened fire point blank into the city starting the German invasion lol. Trojan horse kinda deal.
Nothing like being bombarded point blank by a warship…..
Possibly the finest moment for the Kriegsmarine.
Not a whole lot of bright spots for them in WW2.
Well, that’s a strategy that only works because they knew there was no meaningful shore defences, otherwise that’s one big sitting duck. Fun fact, many of the ships main battery shells failed to detonate due to the range…
damn, an island of guns and armor just rolling up to you and going all-out to erase you.
at that point you might as well share the pack of cigarettes you have.
I can’t even imagine being that close to a battleship attacking the shoreline. If for any reason one of the dozens of gunners decide that you look dangerous – that’s it.
Thank you for the summary and sharing this. This is amazing footage.
Whoa would not want to be on the receiving end of this.
The ship was so close that most of the shots fired couldn’t even arm properly and detonate, so it was just a blunt force smashing through
I hate this fake audio stuff man
I live around 5km from that place. The ruins of bunkers are still there. Crazy how close to the shore it was. You could throw a stone and hit this ship.
The ship was SMS Schleswig-Holstein a dreadnought with a ceremonial visit to port in Gdansk (Danzig then). It hit Westerplatte (PL ammo depot and Gdansk hard). After the capitulation it repositioned and started to shell Polish fortifications at Hel peninsula.
World’s first “Float-by” shooting ever captured on film.