On May 31, 1944, the event in Wisla took more than an hour. An almost 150-member group of guerrillas from the Peasants' Battalion and National Army troops shot and sunk the river steam ship Tannenberg. It carried German and Turkmen soldiers taking part in the brutal pacifications of Lublin villages.
Polish farmers displaced from Zamość, winter 1942-1943.
In the spring of 1944, the Germans started an increased pacification of villages in Lublin, whose inhabitants were believed to cooperate with Polish guerrillas. On May 31, they planned another specified action in the village of Zastów Polanowski, lying about 7 km south of Kazimierz Dolny. Jan Jabłoński “Drzazga”, the commander of the station from the Pulawy territory of Lublin, learned about these plans Boys' Battalions. – However, it was besides late to halt the German operation. So he decided to attack the occupiers on their return to the garrison," says Dr. Piotr Olszewski, a historian who dealt with the period of planet War II. Germany utilized the steam ship Tannenberg to transport its soldiers along the Vistula River. Prior to the war, the steamship sailed in the Polish river fleet and was named “Grunwald”. During the business he was taken over by the Germans and served Wehrmacht to transport troops.
Since Jabłoński's branch had 47 people, and about 140 Wehrmacht soldiers and members of the 791 Turkestan Legion were sent to pacification, “Drzazga” asked for the support of Bolesław Frańczak “Argil”, the branch commander National Army operating in close forests. On the morning of May 31, 1944, erstwhile Germany and its owners began pacification, the guerrillas prepared an ambush for them. The Jabłoński Branch dug and masked in the bushes on the banks of the Vistula River at the tallness of the village of Machów. "There was fog in the morning, we started digging where the current was close the shore," Jabłoński recalled in the Polish Radio broadcast in 1975.
On May 31, 1944, soldiers of the Peasants' Battalions and the National Army sank on the Vistula River close Machov the Tannenberg ship carrying German soldiers.
After the action in Zastów Polanowski was completed, the Germans boarded the ship and set off up the river to the base in Chalupki. After about 3 hours of waiting, the guerrillas saw the ship with the Nazis returning to the garrison. “The steamer sailed slow against the Vistula river, and was so an excellent target,” explains the historian. As “Tannenberg” approached the site of the ambush, the soldiers from the Peasants Battalions were joined by a more-than-twelve unit “Argila” from the 15th Infantry Regiment “Wolf” AK. The first shots were fired at 11 a.m. erstwhile the steamer was within a 100 meters of the guerrilla position.
The Germans returned fire. Polish device weapon shelling damaged the Tannenberg drive, preventing the ship from escaping. The exchange of shots lasted over an hour. Scattered with bullets, the steamer began to draw water and sink. The Germans then broke the fire and rescued themselves by jumping into the water and escaping the inflow. – Poles withdrew erstwhile German artillery joined the fight, which fired on their positions from the base in Chalupki – says Dr. Olszewski.
The action was an incredible success. During the shooting on the German side 60 soldiers were killed and 50 more were injured. Among the guerrillas, 1 AK soldier died and 7 were wounded. The damaged Tannenberg went down. As for the further destiny of the ship, the views of historians are divided. According to any Germans, they pulled him out of the Vistula River, but they found the unit unfit for repair, so they dismantled it. Others say that the steamer was only extracted after the war, renovated and carried passengers for respective years.
