I have never been to the Babie Doły beach… Hard to believe? In my case it is. But until now, there really was no reason for me to go so far into “nowhere”… I have visited the navy aviation base there, and that was enough. Or so I thought…
Finally, I had to visit… As I plotted against myself 😉
From time to time, a wonderful group of retired people come from Greater Poland to visit Gdynia. I have shown them everything worth seeing here, so now, came the time for the further vicinities.
And so I decided to show them Babie Doły torpedo station.
It was built by the Germans during the war. Here was a good location as in Germany all the military facilities were at risk of allied bombing. So here, in Gdynia, just outside the town, the Nazis decided to build two torpedo stations. Just off the shore.
Caissons were sunk about 300 meters from the beach, and a special pier was built to transport the torpedoes. The construction was to serve as a huge assembly hall. At the same it was to be a warehouse. Also a tower was constructed so as to enable the observation of the torpedo testing in the Gulf of Gdańsk. Magnetic and accoustic torpedoes tested there counted as the Nazi wonder weapon. There were two such sites on the Gulf of Gdańsk.
As we know, Hitler did not manage to change the fate of war. And Gdynia returned to Poland. Some of the military objects were incorporated into the rebuilt navy, others, unused, fell into disrepair, or were blown up.
According to the informator from the very interesting TriCyty Biking site, during WW2, the torpedo base was part of the Luftwaffe training ground. As such it demanded the construction of a large military airport with all needed infrastructure, so that also the heavy aircfraft could land there.
This was developed into the biggest in this part of Europe torpedo training center. And everyday about 200 torpedoes were launched here. Including the
“combat version of the German F5b aerial torpedo, which was then used in many activities of the German naval aviation”.
And then came May 1945, which brought the end to the German Nazi dream about the rule over the world. Most of the German troops from Oksywie and Babie Doły evacuated themselves to the Hel peninsula. Leaving the station Begin. The Soviet troops looted the area, leaving destruction everywhere behind. However, for some time, the Babie Doły station served the Polish Navy, then was simply abandoned. It is quite ruined now, but definitely appears to be an attraction for explorers.
