Battle of Westerplatte question and WI

[lionhead]

The first battle of WWII was a pain in the butt for the Germans who though they could take Westerplatte in 10 minutes, it took 7 days.

However, i wonder about air cover for the Polish. Why wasn't there any? If there was no airbase in the vicinity that would expalin it but i can't seem to find the info i need on that. I'd say there should have been a base nearby, or a secret base that had at least a few dozen planes. Maybe only some fighters(PZL P.7) and light bombers(PZL.23 Karas), but still useful planes to help Westerplatte.

In the first 2 days of the battle the Germans had no planes in the area i believe and i get that the Polish airforce was quite busy in other areas of Poland fighting the luftwaffe, but at least a little bit of air cover would have greatly helped the Polish garrison at Westerplatte, even if it was futile in the end.

What if Polish planes(be it fighters or bombers) had attacked the Schleswig-Holstein in the first few hours or 2 days of the battle? Would they have retreated it? Even if it probably would not have been damaged at all? Could they have damaged one of the patrol boats causing even further delay and casualties among the Germans? The attack was small and concentrated, so Polish planes could do some damage to german troops.

What if they had actually damaged the Schleswig-Holstein, or, like Norway did to great surprise, managed to sink a Kriegsmarine surface vessel?

Would even more significant air cover, if later in the battle Polish fighters would show up fighting the German Stuka attacks change the outcome of the battle in any way?

 

[jeandebueil]

IMHO, a polish air attack is not plausible, The polish corridor was consider as untenable by the polish military and they would not send valuable assets to try to damage an old pre-dreadnought battleship when dive bombers could be used to slow down the panzerdivisions west of Poznan ( btw they tried but did not succeed). Westerplatte and the Hel peninsula are alone. BUT what could be possibly done is the following: the westerplatte garrison had a 76 mm field gun: they used it to destroy some machine gun nests during the first hours of the battle (it was destroyed soon after by the battleship's guns if I'm not mistaken, during the second artillery barrage). The major commanding the garrison could decide to fire some HE shells on the command bridge, killing or wounding most of the german officers with a little luck. It could be enough to force the ship to retreat ( no officers: new captain is a low-ranking officer not used to this situation). Then the battleship is heading for the gdansk bay, where two polish submarines are waiting for a prey according to the Worek Plan. With luck, they could damage or even sink the old beast.

as you can see, the field gun is at 1000-1200 meters from the ship.

 

[lionhead]

Right, right. Very interesting. So imagine the gun firing upon the Holstein, doing damage causing it to retreat(which way will it go?). But what about the soldiers on the ground? They were having a bad time and without the ship's supportive fire and now without a safe zone to be able to fall back upon, could they retreat completely to wait for reinforcements/air support? I'd do that if i saw the ship leave, on fire. Fighting might cease untill German Stukas fly over.

Polish garrisons were fighting on the other side as well. If the Polish Commander Sucharski saw the possibility of victory, he might not order the mortar crews to stop firing but give them everything they got, causing even more casualties amongst the Germans there, basically securing their left flank.