Mysterious torpedo in Gdynia. “Germany surpassed the era, it was space”

Maciej Słomiński, Interia: erstwhile I received your telephone number, a common friend sent a card: “Frysier Mariusz”. I thought it was a nickname.

Mariusz Szymanski, fin diver, inventor, hairdresser: It's my profession learned. My father had a barbershop in Gdynia-Oxiv for 27 years since the 1970s, then I took over. We cut together conscripts, sometimes 400 soldiers in 2 days. any Navy commanders haven't been to the harbor as long as I have. I've been soaking sea militarites since I was a kid.

Clients like to talk to barbers.

– I've heard a lot, the transmissions have survived. In Gdynia during the war there was a lot, possibly not Volksdeutsch, but Poles who worked for the Germans. Torpedo plants (two arose: in Oxyvia and Babich Dołach) were immense enterprises.

– I remember the account of 1 client who told what happened in 1945 just before the Soviets arrived. Day after day, the service in haste took the torpedoes from the warehouses with a narrow gauge on the bridge and fired them into the sea so they wouldn't get into abroad hands.

What happened to the torpedo plant in Babich Doła after the war?

– The Soviets first closed the Babich Downs area, then acted on their own, took all the devices to themselves. Towards the end of the Warsaw Pact at the Leningrad Fair, the Russians showed prototype torpedoes of 3 screws. I fishy that they took something from Hexengrund, due to the fact that that was the name of the torpedo “behind the German” – it was the Luftwaffe torpedo camp, the aircraft torpedoes were tested here.

Wait, wait. Torpedoing in Babich Dołach is 300 metres from the shore deep into the Gulf of Gdańsk, while you are talking about air torpedoes, which are dropped from aircraft to hit targets in the water.

“The airplanes took off from the airport, where the Open’er festival is held present in the summer. The torpedoes dropped from the plane were falling into the water, forming a alleged bag. They were innovative adequate to have 2 gyroscopes. The 1 on the bow was correcting the bag as the torpedo fell into the water, going to a certain depth to sail towards the ship. Amazing things for those days.

14 September 1939. The Germans have taken Gdynia.

– First they baptized the city on Gotenhafen, or Port Goths. In 1940, they launched a torpedo facility in Oxyvia, 2 years later in Babich Doła, to which they moved the investigation base from Travmünde to be safe from Allied bombings. In Gdynia, the 3rd Reich tested torpedoes there that no 1 had always dreamed of before. Anyone curious in military weapons has heard of rocket engines inside V1, V2 missiles. Turns out the first investigation was conducted in occupied Gdynia.

How did specified a torpedo work?

The torpedoes were fired twice. The first time – testing, in a tunnel 12 kilometres long precisely hollowed out at the bottom of the bay. A gyroscope was set, a training torpedo was launched, and the recorder placed in the warhead recorded her flight, which ended on specially extended networks. If the torpedo passed the test, it was taken by submarines and utilized in the war.

The Germans are ahead of their era?

- Definitely. The guidance strategy wasn't just electronics. The Allies were very backward with technology. They understood what was going on erstwhile a German torpedo went to shore, there was either a malfunction or a shock trigger or a magnetic detonator didn't work. Then they could pull the torpedo out, spin it, and they knew what was going on.

Why were the German torpedoes? Were they expected to outweigh the war in their favor?

– It was a deadly weapon, then the sea transport was more popular than the air transport, which was just crawling. As torpedoes were able to do, let the case of the sinking of the passenger ship Wilhelm Gustloff at the end of the war testify. I think the Germans ran out of time, not all studies completed.

You're talking about a torpedo station with a distinct fascination.

– The Germans wanted to conquer us, there is no doubt. On the another hand, it's been so long, almost 100 years, and I look at the torpedo plant as a structure, trying to shut down the reasoning of who built it and what it was expected to serve. She's inactive standing, so many years later, how solid this structure is! Larsen's walls are very wide, filled with concrete. It's circumstantial concrete, the longer it's in the water, the harder it gets. At the time, it was technology at the highest level, nothing to talk about.

Today torpedoing is simply a popular place among divers.

– For over 25 years I have been diving, I have given hundreds of interviews about it, including for "National Geographic". I've been to the torpedo area a 100 times, touched almost everything. This maze never gets bored. all dive is different, you can always see something new. There are many concrete, steel, pillars and pillars behind, many wonders of German technology are under the sand. For a diver, you can swim under them. 1 must remember that this is simply a water for divers experienced and specified with good condition. 300 meters from the shore are multi-directional currents. There were a fewer accidents, the last fewer years ago, the boy just didn't make it to shore. It's not a part of cake.

You're not confined to the Gdynia torpedo stations.

– I was at the facility in Eckernförde, Germany. She looks just like ours, she was just as built. 2 towers, between them a rectangle with an open center and a bridge. This German 1 is beautifully renovated, you can visit it. If individual made a decision to rebuild our torpedo room, it would be a fairy tale.

Tell me about the "Blood". By definition, it's a one-man submarine with a wet cabin. It was tested until 1978 in Oxy, you reconstructed it with your own sumptum.

– How much time and money have I invested in “Blood”? But I'm not sorry! In 2003, I rebuilt it on the basis of the elements I found virtually in the dumpster. I did any investigation projects for uniformed services, various events, etc. Then I took care of the fins. They gave me financial stableness to build another fender. On the basis of the first in 2023 I built a fresh one, which has a periscope on cameras, has a strategy of estimating ballasts, a hull coated with Kevlar, has everything.

Impressive.

– I've learned everything myself, built everything out of my own pocket, showed that I can. Recently, I had a lecture at the Mechanical and Electrical Department of the Naval Academy for students. There was a full defender of professors who made designs and drawings all her life. Meanwhile, I showed a task that works. To embarrass these scholars, I frequently emphasize that I am a barber.

There's a hairline coming up.

– I've come up with fins that make up like hair clippers. It was bought by the GROM naval unit. The commandos praise each another very much.

Maciej Słomiński spoke