| ORKAN (October 8, 1943)
Former British ‘M’ Class destroyer HMS Myrmidon, served under the Polish flag and renamed Orkan. It was this ship which carried the coffin of General Sikorski from Gibraltar to Plymouth. On the 8th of October, 1943, the Orkan was torpedoed by the U-boat U-378 (or the U-610) and sank with 178 Polish and 20 British crewmembers. There were only 23 survivors. Mostly engaged in escort duties for convoys between Loch Ewe in Scotland and the Russian port of Murmansk. It during such a trip that the Orkan was attacked and sunk by an acoustic torpedo from the U-boat. On July 25, 1943, the Orkan rescued 41 German sailors who had survived the sinking of the U-459 in the North Atlantic. The U-459 had been sunk by depth charges dropped from a RAF plane.
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On weald of Kent I watched once more
Again I heard that grumbling roar
Of fighter planes; yet none were near
And all around the sky was clear
Borne on the wind a whisper came
'Though men grow old, they stay the same'
And then I knew, unseen to eye
The ageless Few were sweeping by
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