COBI ORP Sokół Polish Submarine Set 4863

COBI's ORP Sokoł is a 1:300 model built from 142 blocks, 19.5 cm long, released in cooperation with the Polish Navy Museum in Gdynia. A display base with a collector's plaque is included, and all markings are printed.

A navy with no country

By 1941 Poland had been occupied for two years. Its navy still existed — a few ships that had escaped in 1939, and several thousand sailors who had got out through Romania, Hungary and France — but it had no ports, no shipyards and no government on its own soil.

Britain solved it by lending ships. Sokoł was a Royal Navy U-class boat, transferred to Polish crew and command in 1941 and flying the Polish ensign under overall British operational control. Several destroyers and submarines were handed over the same way.

She went to the Mediterranean and operated from Malta during the siege, sinking at least fourteen enemy vessels. With ORP Dzik she became half of a pair the Allies called the Terrible Twins.

The arrangement ended with the war. Sokoł was returned to the Royal Navy in 1946 and scrapped in 1949, and the crews who had sailed her mostly could not go home — Poland by then was a country they had not fought for.

In the COBI range

Set 4864 is ORP Dzik, the other Terrible Twin. Both are U-class boats, as are HMS Upholder (4862) and the Norwegian HNoMS Uredd (4861) — the same class under four flags.

Specifications

Pieces: 142 · Scale: 1:300 · Age: 7+ · In cooperation with the Polish Navy Museum in Gdynia
Model dimensions: 19.5 × 6.5 × 4 cm (7.7 × 2.6 × 1.6 in)