Polish Ocean Lines' historic WARYNSKI, built at Hamburg in 1936, is seen passing Portishead, inbound for Avonmouth exactly fifty years ago today, on 17th December 1969. She had sailed from Port Sudan on 27th October bound for her home port of Gdynia.

Built by Deutsche Werft at Reiherstieg as ATHEN for Deutsche Levante Linie, she was taken over by the German Navy in September 1940 and renamed SPERRBRECHER 2 as which she was mined and broke in two at Boulogne on 22nd September 1940.

Returned to her owners in November 1942, she was repaired, reverting to the name ATHEN in 1944.

On 3rd May 1945 at Neustadt, in the Lübecker Bucht, ATHEN was one of three ships loaded with refugees hit in a tragic air raid. Undamaged herself, there was heavy loss of life on the other ships and memorials on the island of Poel and at Haffkrug were established to remember the incident.

ATHEN was acquired by the Soviet Union as part of War reparations and was renamed GENERAL BRUSILOV. In 1947 the ship was transferred to Poland and renamed WARYNSKI, initially operated by Gdynia America Shipping Lines and from 1951 by Polish Ocean Lines.

WARYNSKI was hulked for storage in the second quarter of 1970 and broken up at Szczecin in 1973.

This photograph and caption can also be seen in my book "Bristol Port and Channel Nostalgia" published by Coastal Shipping of Portishead. My article on Polish shipping published in the January 2020 edition of Shipping Today and Yesterday magazine also mentions the vessel.