battle, notable, interwar and Second World War

Battle of Hel

Battle of Hel was a battle fought on 9 September 1939 at Hel Peninsula, in what is now Poland. It was part of the 1939 Invasion of Poland. The recorded result: German victory.

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For documentary purposes the German Federal Archive often retained the original image captions, which may be erroneous, biased, obsolete or politically extreme. Hela. Unknown authorUnknown author, CC BY-SA 3.0 de, via Wikimedia Commons.

Record

Date	9 September 1939
Place	Hel Peninsula, Poland 54.642N, 18.781E
Part of	1939 Invasion of Poland (1939)
Kind	Battle, interwar and Second World War
Result	German victory
Belligerents	Nazi Germany	Second Polish Republic
Commanders	Friedrich-Georg Eberhardt	Józef Unrug; Włodzimierz Steyer; Adam Mohuczy
Strength	38,000 infantry; 2 pre-dreadnoughts; 2 destroyers; Dozens of aircraft	2,800 infantry; 1 destroyer; 1 large minelayer; Several light naval craft
Casualties and losses	Luftwaffe: 46–53 aircraft; Heer: several dozen killed and wounded; Kriegsmarine: 1 destroyer damaged; 1 pre-dreadnought lightly damaged; 1 minesweeper sunk	50 killed, 150 wounded, rest taken prisoner; 1 destroyer sunk; 1 minelayer sunk; All light craft sunk, damaged, and / or captured.

The recorded site, with the nearest other engagements in the atlas. Present-day coastlines, rivers and borders; towns from Natural Earth.

Nearest engagements

Defense of the Coast of Poland in the September Campaign 1939, 0.9 km
Battle of Kępa Oksywska 1939, 18 km
Siege of Gdynia 1939, 22 km
Battle of Westerplatte 1939, 27 km
Siege of Danzig 1807, 32 km

In the same war

Before: Battle of the Bzura 9 September 1939
After: Battle of Kampinos Forest 9 September 1939
All 57 engagements of 1939 Invasion of Poland

Elsewhere in 1939

Battles of Khalkhin Gol Mongolia
Battle of the River Plate
Battle of Suomussalmi Finland
Battle of Changsha People's Republic of China
Battle of Tolvajärvi Finland

Battle of Hel is one of 1,912 engagements of the 20th century in the atlas and one of 350 in present-day Poland.

Sources

Identity, coordinates, dates and the war from Wikidata Q704550, released under CC0. Result, belligerents, commanders, strength and casualties from the infobox of the English Wikipedia article Battle of Hel, revision 1374024553, read 2026-11-14, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0; the article's text is not reproduced here. Present-day country and state from Natural Earth. Dates before 1582 follow the Julian calendar as recorded.