HMS Garland (H37): Loaned to Poland on the Anniversary of Its Constitution

Constructed at Govan

HMS Garland was ordered on 5 March 1934 from Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering at Govan, laid down on 22 August that year, launched on 24 October 1935, and completed on 3 March 1936, at a cost of £250,664 excluding armament. A G-class destroyer, she displaced 1,350 tons standard, rising to 1,883 tons at deep load, and her Parsons turbines produced 34,000 shaft horsepower for a top speed of 36 knots.

She carried four 4.7-inch guns, torpedo tubes and a substantial depth charge fit, eventually increased to 44 charges by mid-1940 as anti-submarine tactics evolved.

HMS Garland joined the 1st Destroyer Flotilla of the Mediterranean Fleet upon commissioning, and during the Spanish Civil War took part in the evacuation of British and foreign nationals from Barcelona, alongside enforcing the Non-Intervention Committee's arms blockade between 1937 and 1938.

An Early Mishap and a Symbolic Transfer

HMS Garland suffered a serious accident of her own making on 17 September 1939, while escorting a convoy to Malta, when some of her own depth charges detonated prematurely, severely damaging her aft section.

Temporary repairs were carried out at Alexandria, with permanent repairs running from 11 October 1939 to 8 May 1940 at Malta, a remarkably lengthy period out of action for a ship still very early in her wartime career.

HMS Garland was loaned to the Polish Navy on 3 May 1940, deliberately timed to coincide with the anniversary of the 1791 Polish Constitution, a properly thoughtful piece of symbolism at a moment when Poland itself had already fallen under German and Soviet occupation and the Polish Navy's exiled ships and crews represented one of the few remaining ways the country could continue contributing directly to the Allied war effort.

She became ORP Garland, and began Mediterranean operations under Polish colours and largely Polish crews.

Storms, Malta Convoys and a Devastating Bomb

ORP Garland was lightly damaged by Italian aircraft during Operation Hats on 31 August 1940, while escorting a convoy to Malta, and suffered further damage on 13 November that year, badly battered by a storm while escorting the battleship HMS Revenge, an incident in which two men were lost overboard, a grim reminder that the sea itself could prove just as dangerous as any enemy action.

She escorted a large convoy to Malta during Operation Halberd in September 1941, working alongside the Polish destroyer ORP Piorun.

ORP Garland's most devastating action came far to the north, during the Arctic convoy PQ 16 in May 1942. She had sailed from Iceland on 21 May under the command of Lieutenant Commander Henryk Eibel, who had taken charge of the ship that January, into the endless daylight of the Arctic summer that made air attack, rather than the U-boat, the convoy's principal enemy.

On 27 May, south of Bear Island, a Junkers Ju 88 bomber dropped a bomb just 10 yards off her starboard side, and the resulting explosion killed 22 of her crew and wounded 37 more, decimating the gun crews manning her 'A' and 'B' turrets along with her starboard Oerlikon and machine gun positions, a particularly catastrophic single strike for a destroyer of her size. Her hull came away so thoroughly peppered with shrapnel holes that her crew took to calling her 'HMS Pepperpot', while the ship's surgeon, Lieutenant W. Zabron, operated almost non-stop for over thirty hours on the wardroom table to save as many of the wounded as he could. Garland fought off eight further air attacks before finally reaching Murmansk on 29 May.

Temporary repairs took over a month, and permanent repairs were not completed until 21 September 1942, a long recovery from what had been one of the costliest single incidents in her entire wartime career. Five of her crew were subsequently awarded the Virtuti Militari, Poland's highest decoration for gallantry, alongside further Polish Crosses of Valour and British commendations for their conduct that day.

A U-Boat Kill Off Santorini

ORP Garland returned to particularly effective service later in the war, taking part in the sinking of the German submarine U-407 off Santorini on 19 September 1944, working alongside two other British destroyers, a satisfying confirmed kill after the punishing losses she had absorbed at PQ 16 two years earlier.

Postwar Service and a Second Navy

Following Germany's surrender in May 1945, ORP Garland transported emergency supplies to Belgium and the Netherlands, and took part in Operation Deadlight, the scuttling of captured German U-boats, before being paid off in July 1946 as the loan arrangement with the Polish Navy wound down.

She was sold to the Royal Netherlands Navy on 14 November 1946 for £9,000, initially serving as a school ship before being refurbished in 1948 as an anti-submarine training vessel and renamed HNLMS Marnix on 16 January 1950.

Reclassified as a frigate in 1952, she was finally decommissioned on 31 January 1964 and subsequently scrapped, closing out a notably international career that had carried her through Royal Navy, Polish and Dutch service across nearly three decades.