ORP Sęp " For the second ORP Sęp serving in the Polish Navy since 2002 , see ORP Sęp ( 2002 ) " . ORP " Sęp " was a serving in the Polish Navy during World War II . In Polish her name means " Vulture " . Construction . Built at the Dutch shipyard " Rotterdamse Droogdok Maatschappij " , she was laid down in November 1936 and launched on 17 October 1938 . In early 1939 the Polish team supervising the building of the ship noticed a significant slowdown in her construction , which it attributed to the action of German agents . Because of fears that German pressure on Holland would prevent that country from delivering the ship into Polish hands , it was decided to bring the ship to Poland earlier than scheduled . On April 2nd , the ship left for deep water sea trials in Horten , Norway , with a crew of Polish sailors and Dutch technicians , under the Dutch flag . After completing the trials , the Polish crew took control of the ship ( against the will of the Dutch technicians on board ) , raised the Polish flag and left Horten to rendezvous with the Polish destroyer ORP Burza outside the harbour . All but two Dutch workers were left ashore in Norway . From Burza the submarine received additional crew and supplies , then sailed under her escort to Poland . On the way the ship ran out of diesel fuel and had to be taken in tow by the destroyer . On April 18 Sęp arrived in Gdynia , entering the harbour on her electric engines , and was officially commissioned into the Polish navy . The remaining two Dutch technicians were released and allowed to return home . The fitting out of the ship continued in Poland , with parts arriving from Holland after the relations with the Dutch were repaired following the " hijacking " , but was not finished before the war broke out , hence the ship was not at full readiness in September 1939 . A visit to Rotterdam to finish the fitting out was contemplated but the outbreak of war prevented it . World War II . " Sęp " sailed into the naval port of Hel a few days before the war started , commanded by kmdr ppor . Władysław Salamon . On September 1 , the first day the war , the submarine took up her patrol sector in accordance with the Worek Plan . On 2 September she attacked a German destroyer Friedrich Ihn ( Z14 ) with a single torpedo which missed , with the destroyer responding with heavy depth - charging which damaged the submarine , causing water leaks . On 3 September Sęp was attacked again and suffered more damage , which caused more leaks into the ship . With her position clearly revealed to the enemy , the submarine left her assigned sector and began to sail in the direction of Gotland Island . Over the next few days she operated without contact with the enemy in the vicinity of Sweden , her crew trying to repair the damage , and her captain requesting permission to return to base in order to carry out more repairs , which was denied . On September 13 the submarine received orders permitting her to sail to England if possible , and otherwise to be interned in a neutral Swedish port . The crew at first decided to sail for England but over the next few days the ship ' s condition deteriorated further , with serious leaks into the ship when submerged , and the submerging itself taking up to 30 minutes , unacceptably long if the ship was to successfully pass through German patrols on the way to England . On September 15 her commander decided to sail for Sweden . On September 17 the submarine appeared off Stockholm and requested permission to enter the harbor to carry out repairs . These were clearly so extensive that they could not be finished in the limited time allowed under international law , so the submarine ' s commander decided that the ship should be interned by the Swedish authorities . In late September the ship was disarmed and her propulsion systems disabled . In early 1940 attempts were made for " Sęp " and the two other interned Polish submarines to be released by Sweden and allowed to proceed to Britain , after necessary repairs . However , with German wartime successes , particularly the German occupation of Norway , the possibility of Sweden allowing such a move receded . The Polish submarines were moved around various Swedish ports in the course of the war , and even received maintenance work , but were not allowed to leave . Post - war service . After the war ended , on June 23 , 1945 a Polish Military Commission arrived in Sweden to arrange for the return of the interned submarines to Poland . On September 5 the submarines officially passed under Polish control , and after repair work left Sweden on October 21 , and reached the Polish coast on October 25 . On November 30 , 1945 " Sęp " was again officially commissioned into the Polish Navy . In 1946 she was rearmed with Soviet caliber torpedoes and guns . In 1951 eight crew members were accused of plotting to defect with the ship to Sweden , and were prosecuted in a Stalinist show trial . In a 1959 Polish film the ship was used to portray her twin ORP Orzeł . In 1959 the submarine became a training ship . She remained the largest submarine of the postwar Polish Navy until 1962 when it commissioned the first of four Soviet - built Whiskey class submarine s , which were of similar size . In 1964 she suffered a serious fire ( 8 crewmembers died ) , after which she was repaired , but was not fully operational . In 1969 the ship suffered another accident while submerged . The ship was decommissioned on 15 September 1969 and subsequently scrapped in 1972 . In 2002 the Polish Navy commissioned the second ORP Sęp , a Kobben class submarine obtained from Norway .