German battleship Tirpitz

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Career	Image:War Ensign of Germany 1938-1945.svg
Image:Tirpitz early.jpg
Ordered:	1935
Laid down:	2 November 1936
Launched:	1 April 1939
Commissioned:	25 February 1941
Fate:	Capsized by enemy action on 12 November 1944
General Characteristics
Displacement:	42,900t standard; 52,600t full load
Dimensions:	251 m x 36 m x 8.7 m
Armament:	8 × 380 mm (15 in) (4×2) 12 × 150 mm (5.9 in) (6×2) 16 × 105 mm (4.1 in) (4×2) 16 × 37 mm (8×2) 20 × 20 mm (20 × 1) (later 90) 8 × 533 mm torpedo tubes
Aircraft:	4, with 2 catapults
Propulsion:	163,026 shp = 30.8 kt
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.

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

Following the inception of the Arctic convoys and the Commando raid on Vågsøy, Tirpitz was sent to northern 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 mainly as a fleet in being, tying up Royal Navy resources, and Britain decided to sink her while she was in port. Several separate operations were needed to achieve this objective.

1 Operation Source
2 Operation Tungsten
3 Operations Planet, Brawn, Tiger Claw and Mascot
4 Operations Goodwood I, II, III and IV
5 Operations Paravane, Obviate and Catechism
6 Tirpitz as scrap
7 See also
8 Further reading
9 External links

[edit] 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 attack is told in the 1955 film Above Us The Waves.

[edit] Operation Tungsten

Image:Camouflaging Tirpitz.jpg

By April, 1944, the Tirpitz had been repaired and posed a renewed threat. In response, the British 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 the Tirpitz while she was 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 faced little effective opposition. 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. The ship's armour was not penetrated, though near misses caused some flooding. Overall the damage done was significant and took two months to repair.

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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 22 August. Low cloud obscured the Tirpitz and there were no hits.

Goodwood III, on 24 August, successfully confused the air defences by its 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 the Tirpitz would have sunk.

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

The final Fleet Air Arm attack was Goodwood IV, on 29 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.

[edit] Operations Paravane, Obviate and Catechism

Image:Tirpitz altafjord.jpg

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 No. 9 Squadron's, disabled the ship to the extent that 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 the 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-clouds hid the Tirpitz and there was only one near-miss that bent a propeller-shaft.

Image:Tirpitz (AWM SUK14095).jpg The smokescreen was not active on the third attempt - "Operation Catechism". The 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 glanced off turret armour, but the other two pierced the ship's armour and blew a 200 foot hole into 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.

One interesting issue is the failure[1] 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 cited 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 been fully trained on their new Focke-Wulf 190 aircraft.

[edit] 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. Additionally, a large chunk of the armour plating is held at the Royal Naval 'Explosion!' museum in Gosport, Hampshire.