Torpedo Testing Station in Babie Doły

By the Gdynia district of Babie Doły, right by the beach, the Torpedownia rises from the waters of the Bay of Gdańsk as a ruin — a former torpedo assembly and testing hall, built by the Germans during the Second World War on the bottom of the water body, several hundred metres from the shore. A wooden pier connected it with land, along which a narrow-gauge railway carried the torpedo components.

Hexengrund and its twin

The structure was part of Torpedowaffenplatz Hexengrund, a research centre of the Luftwaffe. On the neighbouring Oksywie operated its twin — Torpedo Versuchsanstalt Oxhöft, subordinate to the Kriegsmarine and today occupied by the military Formoza unit. The two centres were linked by a narrow-gauge railway that the crews jokingly called the Kashubian Express; firing observations were conducted from points scattered along the Hel Peninsula. In May 1945 German soldiers evacuated to Hel via the piers of both torpedo stations.

A ruin that stayed

The post-war years were unkind to the building: in the 1980s the front wall collapsed into the sea, and the surviving wooden pier was blown up by the navy. Today the ruin is a habitat for water birds and round gobies, and in good weather it can be admired from the beach in Babie Doły — the northernmost district of Gdynia. The place also reached the cinema: scenes of Four Tank-Men and a Dog, the Kryminalni series and the film Superwizja were shot here.

In practice

The best view is from the beach and the bathing area in Babie Doły; the ruin itself cannot be entered. Access runs along Zielona Street, the district's only road, served by city buses. The visit combines well with a rest on the sandy shore.