1. Mamert Stankiewicz's life was immortalized by Karol Olgierd Borchardt, whose series of books on Mamert Stankiewicz became a best-seller among Polish maritime books.
11 Facts About Mamert Stankiewicz
1. 2.
Mamert Stankiewicz was born in Mitau in Courland to a Polish noble family with "Grave" coat of arms.
3.
The Mamert Stankiewicz Family lived there, after the return from imprisonment in Syberia for the involvement in the January Uprising of 1863 against the occupying Poland the Czar's Russia.
4.
Mamert Stankiewicz graduated from the Naval Cadet Corps in St Petersburg and joined the Russian Imperial Navy.
5.
When she was completed in 1935, Mamert Stankiewicz became her first commanding officer.
6.
Mamert Stankiewicz rescued several sailors and soldiers and protected their safety on the lifeboats, while himself immersed in ice-cold Northern Atlantic.
7.
The sailors, soldiers, and Captain Mamert Stankiewicz were finally rescued by a British ship.
8.
Mamert Stankiewicz was buried with full military honours in Hartlepool near Middlesbrough.
9.
Mamert Stankiewicz was posthumously awarded with the Virtuti Militari for bravery on the battlefield with the highest Polish military decoration, and the British Distinguished Service Cross.
10.
Mamert Stankiewicz's elder brother Jan, was a captain of Polish Merchant Marine.
11.
Already during his lifetime Mamert Stankiewicz became known to his crew as Znaczy Kapitan, which could be roughly translated as 'That is' Captain, a nickname coined after Mamert Stankiewicz's habit of starting almost every sentence with the word znaczy.