The Gdańsk Bay is one of the most interesting bodies of water along the Polish coast. Numerous shipping routes led through its waters, and the shipbuilding industry developed in Gdańsk and Gdynia. It was also here that many naval battles were fought, and traces of these events are wrecks of ships, vessels and aircraft lying on the bottom. At the temporary exhibition ‘The Military Heritage of the Gdańsk Bay’ at the Fisheries Museum in Hel, visitors can see how the application of modern technologies in diving and documentation of wrecks, with the simultaneous cooperation of various organisations, contributes to the popularisation of the underwater cultural heritage of the Baltic Sea and to the protection of its monuments.
The wrecks showcased at the exhibition date back to the Second World War. In September 1939, as a result of German air attacks, numerous Polish seaplanes and ships, including OORP Gryf and Wicher, were sunk in the waters of the Gdańsk Bay. During the German occupation of Poland, the bay became a testing ground for training flotillas of German submarine crews stationed in Gdańsk, Gdynia and Hel. The intensity of the training, inexperience of the crews or cases of sabotage often led to collisions or sinking of the training units. In the last months of the war, during Operation Hannibal, particularly dramatic events unfolded in the area. It was here that many of the vessels involved, with thousands of evacuated German soldiers and civilians on board, fell victim to Soviet aviation and submarines.
After the war, some of the wrecks – above all those blocking access to the harbours – were fully or partially removed. For a long time, the remains of metal vessels were treated as bottom obstacles. Today, thanks to the growing interest in underwater cultural heritage, these objects, as unique traces of past events, are revealing their stories to an increasingly wider public. The availability of diving equipment and the development of documentation technologies are opening up opportunities not only to view sunken vessels, but also to digitally map them. As a result, not only underwater archaeologists, but also diving enthusiasts are playing a key role in documenting wrecks, including creating detailed visualisations of objects lying at great, hard to reach depths.
Digital photogrammetric models of selected wrecks resting on the seabed of the Gdańsk Bay are shown at the exhibition both as two-dimensional images and 3D animations, as well as physical spatial forms. In this way, it is possible to see, at close range, the remains of the Polish destroyer ORP Wicher, the German U-Boats U-272 and U-768, the icebreaker Königsberg, Kriegsfischkutter-type vessels and tugboats, among others. Modern forms of documentation serve not only to popularise the military heritage of the Gdańsk Bay; they are also a basis for assessing the state of preservation and the progress of degradation of these unique historical objects, as well as a means of preserving knowledge about them for future generations.
The temporary exhibition ‘The Military Heritage of the Gdańsk Bay’ was created by:
National Maritime Museum in Gdańsk
Dive Land Diver Support Foundation
Underwater 3D
Institute of Historical and Regional Studies Ltd, publisher of the magazine Odkrywca
Submerged Foundation
Curator of the exhibition: Dr Anna Rembisz-Lubiejewska
Historical consultation / editing: Dr Marcin Westphal
Proofreading: Anna Ciemińska
Translation: Dr Joanna Zaremba-Penk
Design: Barbara Wojczuk-Krystek
Animation: Patryk Herdzik
Coordination: Monika Golenko, Bartłomiej Garba
The Military Heritage of the Gdańsk Bay
11.04.2025 – 23.06.2025
Fisheries Museum in Hel
