Peking Plan

The plan was created in order to remove the Destroyer Division (Dywizjon Kontrtorpedowców) of the Polish Navy from the Baltic Sea operation theatre.

On 31 August, the ships were spotted and followed by German reconnaissance seaplanes, and the group changed course towards Norway in order to shake off the pursuit during the night, when they returned to their original course towards the UK.

On the other hand, all the other surface ships of the Polish Navy which had remained in the Baltic were engaged and sunk or captured by the German fleet, starting with the Battle of the Gdańsk Bay on 1 September.

[2] The two remaining major warships of the Polish fleets, the destroyer Wicher and the heavy minelayer Gryf, were both sunk by 3 September 1939.

[2] As for the Germans, in the face of the Peking Plan on 30 August, they recalled from the Baltic Sea the tactical unit which had been assigned to engage them — the three light cruisers Nürnberg, Köln and Leipzig, under Vice-Admiral Hermann Densch.

Polish destroyers during the Peking Plan. View from Błyskawica of Grom and Burza .
Polish destroyer ( Błyskawica or Grom ) under the Forth Railway Bridge in Scotland