Orzel departed on patrol in May 1940, failed to answer orders, and was declared lost after she did not return. No surviving report fixes the cause, so German or British mines and mistaken air attack remain possibilities. Radio silence, uncertain patrol positions, and the violence of anti-submarine attack often leave no witnesses, making submarine losses unusually hard to reconstruct. Searches for Orzel have instead located other wrecks, showing both the scale of the North Sea search problem and the value of methodical underwater archaeology.
Notable Point · 33:24-39:43
Orzel's disappearance and the difficulty of identifying submarine wrecks
Orzel vanished on patrol in 1940, leaving mines, aircraft attack, and unidentified wrecks as competing explanations for her loss.