German battleship Tirpitz

Career
Ordered:	1935
Laid down:	2 November 1936
Launched:	1 April 1939
Commissioned:	25 February 1941
Fate:	Sunk by enemy action on 12 November 1944
General Characteristics
Displacement:	42,900t standard; 52,600t full load
Dimensions:	251m x 36m x 8.7m
Armament:	8 x 380 mm (15 in) (4×2) 12 x 150 mm (5.9 in) (6×2) 16 x 105 mm (4.1 in) (4×2) 16 x 37 mm (8×2) 20 x 20 mm (20 x 1) (later 90) 8 x 533 mm torpedo tubes
Aircraft:	4, with 2 catapults
Propulsion:	163,026 hp = 30.8 kts
Crew:	2,608

Tirpitz was the second Bismarck class battleship of the German Kriegsmarine, sistership of Bismarck. She was named after Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz.

Tirpitz was launched 1 April 1939 and deployed in a manner similar to Bismarck, as a commerce raider to be sent against Allied merchant shipping in the North Atlantic. She was titled the "Lonely Queen of the North" ("Den ensomme Nordens Dronning") by the Norwegians.

As a result of the Arctic convoys and the Commando raid on Vågsøy, Tirpitz was sent to Norwegian waters where she spent most of World War II in the fjords. She made three offensive sorties; an attempt to interdict convoy PQ12 in March 1942 (Operation Sportpalast), a similar attempt against PQ17 in July 1942 (Operation Rösselsprung) and a raid on Spitsbergen in September 1943 (Operation Sizilien). She acted as a fleet in being tying up Royal Navy resources and the decision was taken to sink her while she was in port. Several separate operations were needed to achieve this objective completely.

Operation Source

The first attempt to destroy the Tirpitz was a very risky operation. As part of Operation Source, British X class midget submarines planted explosive charges beneath Tirpitz in September 1943. Lieutenant Basil Place commanding Midget Submarine X.7, and Lieutenant Donald Cameron commanding Midget Submarine X.6, both received a Victoria Cross for their part in the action. The submarines had to travel at least 1,000 miles from base, negotiate a minefield, dodge nets, gun defences and enemy listening posts. Having eluded all these hazards they finally placed the charges underneath the ship where they went off an hour later, doing so much damage that the Tirpitz was out of action for several months. (The story of this raid is told in the film Above Us The Waves.)

Operation Tungsten

By April, 1944, Tirpitz had been repaired and offered a renewed threat. The British decided once again to destroy her and executed Operation Tungsten, an attack by carrier-borne aircraft of the Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm.

A significant part of the Home Fleet took part, including 2 battleships, 2 fleet aircraft carriers, 5 escort aircraft carriers, 2 cruisers, 16 destroyers with support from 2 oilers. Steps were taken, including phoney wireless traffic, to hide their departure from Scapa Flow. The air attack was launched a day earlier than planned, catching Tirpitz preparing for departure on trials.

The air attacks were in two waves of Fairey Barracuda torpedo bombers with escorting fighters. A variety of bombs were carried: anti-submarine bombs that would cause damage even if they exploded in the water around her, armour piercing bombs capable of penetrating deck armour, smaller bombs that could penetrate superstructure armour and general purpose bombs that would be effective against the crew and the anti-aircraft weapons they were manning. The defences were poor and ill-organised and the attack had little disruption. Some of the fighters contributed by strafing the decks with machine gun fire. The first attack was at 05:30; by 08:00 the Royal Navy had landed all but three planes that had been lost. The Tirpitz had lost 122 crew with a further 300 wounded, but damage was limited to the superstructure and the ship's armour was not penetrated, though near misses caused some flooding. Overall the damage done was significant and took 2 months to repair.

Operations Planet, Brawn, Tiger Claw and Mascot

The threat remained and further operations were planned. Three air attacks (Operations Planet, Brawn and Tiger Claw) were cancelled, in April and May, 1944, due to poor weather.

The next carrier-borne attempt was Operation Mascot, in July,1944. By this time, however, the Germans had set up effective warning and smoke systems which effectively obscured the Tirpitz from the attacking aircraft. Apart from one near-miss, the raid was a failure.

Operations Goodwood I, II, III and IV

Tirpitz underwent sea trials in early August 1944 and three weeks later the Fleet Air Arm launched more attacks. These had mixed success, none dealing the hoped for coup-de-grace.

Operations Goodwood I and Goodwood II took place on 22nd August. Low cloud obscured the Tirpitz and there were no hits.

Goodwood III, on 24th August, successfully confused the air defences by their approach tactics and scored 2 hits on the Tirpitz. One caused damage to a turret. The other pierced the ship's armour belt but failed to explode - 'an exceptional stroke of luck'. Had it done so, the German report said: '... the effects of that explosion would have been immeasurable.' It is likely that Tirpitz would have sunk.

The escort aircraft carrier HMS Nabob returned to Scapa Flow after being seriously damaged by a torpedo hit from a U-boat (U-354).

The final Fleet Air Arm attack was Goodwood IV, on 29th August. Once more, low cloud prevented any hits. After this, the fleet withdrew on convoy duties and the Tirpitz was left to the Royal Air Force.

Operations Paravane, Obviate and Catechism

The Royal Air Force and the United States Army Air Forces proposed several schemes to attack Tirpitz using Mosquito fighter-bombers, Short Sunderland flying boats or B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bombers, but none came to anything.

There were three attempts by the RAF. The first attempt, "Operation Paravane", was launched on 15 September by Avro Lancasters of 617 and 9 Squadrons, from a temporary base at Yagodnik, near Arkhangelsk in the Soviet Union. They were equipped with Barnes Wallis' 5-tonne Tallboy bombs and experimental 5,000-pound "Johnny Walker" underwater "walking" mines. On that occasion, a smokescreen successfully protected the Tirpitz from all but one of the bombs, although this, one of 9 Squadron's, disabled the ship to the extent she was no longer a threat to Allied shipping. A German report stated: It was eventually decided at a conference on 23 September 1944 at which the C-in-C and Naval Staff were present, that it was no longer possible to make the Tirpitz ready for sea and action again... However, this was kept secret from the British, who believed that repairs were 'possible' and so the attacks continued.

In October, as Tirpitz was no longer considered to be a major warship, she was moved further south to Tromsø, to act as a floating gun battery against the expected Allied invasion of Norway. She was now within range of air operations from Scotland.

"Operation Obviate", with modified Lancasters from Lossiemouth in Scotland carrying 'Tallboy' bombs, took place on 28 October. At the last moment, sea-cloud hid the Tirpitz and there was only one near-miss that bent a propeller-shaft.

The smokescreen was not active on the third attempt - "Operation Catechism". Tirpitz was finally sunk immediately to the west of Tromsø, in the bay of Håkøybotn, on 12 November 1944 by 617 and 9 Squadron Lancasters with Tallboys on their third attempt. The ship was struck by three Tallboys. One was disrupted by a glancing blow from turret armour, but the other two bombs pierced the ship's armour and blew a 200 foot hole in her port side. Soon after, internal fires set off a magazine and blew off "C" turret. The Tirpitz capsized within minutes of the attack, and close to 1,000 German sailors, out of 1,700 aboard, died.

An aspect of this air raid is the failure^* of the Luftwaffe to intercept the British bombers (some reports say that one bomber was shot down, but British sources ascribe this to anti-aircraft fire). The aircraft used, the Lancaster B.1 Special, had had one turret (the mid-upper) and some armour removed, so they would have been highly vulnerable to fighter attack. The reasons for this failure are contradictory. The approach route of the bombers may have suggested an attack on the airfield at Bardufoss, and Luftwaffe responses to the Tirpitz's calls for help claimed that there were aircraft "overhead". The local air defence systems may have been inadequate and the German pilots had not yet fully trained on their new Focke-Wulf 190 aircraft.

Tirpitz as scrap

Postwar, the wreck was sold off and broken up in situ by a Norwegian company. Nearly the entire ship was cut up and hauled away, however a large portion of the bow remains where it sank in 1944. Also nearby are artificial lakes around the shore, bomb craters from Tallboy bombs that missed their target. To this day, sections of Tirpitz' armour plates are used by the Norwegian Roads Authority ("Vegvesen") as temporary road surface material during roadwork.

External links

Bismarck class battleships | World War II battleships of Germany

Operation Source

Operation Tungsten

Operations Planet, Brawn, Tiger Claw and Mascot

Operations Goodwood I, II, III and IV

Operations Paravane, Obviate and Catechism

Tirpitz as scrap

Further reading

See also

External links

Gourt Home::Gourt :: German battleship Tirpitz

Operation Source

Operation Tungsten

Operations Planet, Brawn, Tiger Claw and Mascot

Operations Goodwood I, II, III and IV

Operations Paravane, Obviate and Catechism

Tirpitz as scrap

Further reading

See also

External links