Tirpitz was the second Bismarck class battleship of the German Kriegsmarine, sistership of Bismarck. She was named after Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz. She saw very limited action. In fact, she never fired a single shot against an enemy ship, but spent almost the entire war in various bases in Norway, where her mere presence was a great threat to the Allies, tying up huge naval and air forces to make sure she could be dealt with if she ever made an offensive sortie. Due to her role and bases of operations she was dubbed the "Lonely Queen of the North" ("Den ensomme Nordens Dronning") by the Norwegians.
Operational history
The ship was launched 1 April 1939 and was to be deployed in a manner similar to Bismarck, as a commerce raider to be sent against Allied merchant shipping in the North Atlantic. However, the fate of Bismarck and other commerce raiders led to Hitler losing faith in the surface navy, and she was instead ordered to be used for limited sorties.
Following the inception of the Arctic convoys and the Commando raid on Vågsøy, Tirpitz was sent to northern Norwegian waters in early 1942, where she spent most of World War II in the fjords. She acted mainly as a fleet in being, tying up Royal Navy resources. She made three offensive sorties during her stay in Norway, two in 1942 and one in 1943. Despite her very limited offensive use, the armed forces of United Kingdom had a great fear of the potential for destruction the Tirpitz represented to Allied shipping and decided to sink her while she was in port. Many operations were launched with this objective in mind, but none were successful in sinking her until she was bombed and capsized on 12 November 1944.
[edit] Offensive actions by the Tirpitz
[edit] Operation Sportpalast
Operation Sportpalast was an attempt to interdict the convoys PQ-12 and QP-8 in early March 1942. PQ-12 sailed from Iceland on 1 March 1942, and QP-8 sailed from Murmansk at about the same time. On 5 March 1942 Tirpitz, escorted by three destroyers, left her base and made a sortie into the Arctic Ocean in the area around Bear Island. During the following days the German force had no luck finding either convoy. Only a single merchant was found and sunk by one of the screening destroyers. On 9 March 1942 Tirpitz was spotted by aircraft from the carrier HMS Victorious, and the German commander, Admiral Otto Ciliax, made the decision to abort the operation following unsuccessful British air attacks.
[edit] Operation Rösselsprung
Operation Rösselsprung was an attempt to intercept the Arctic convoys during the summer of 1942. A naval force consisting of Tirpitz, Admiral Hipper, Admiral Scheer and 9 destroyers were assembled and held ready to move on the convoys passing by. The most famous incident during this operation was the near destruction of Convoy PQ-17 in July 1942. PQ-17, which departed Iceland on 27 June 1942, was heavily escorted, and there was also a powerful Task Force operating in the area. On 4 July 1942 Tirpitz and her escorts left port to sail to a new base. This was perceived by the British Intelligence as an offensive sortie, and the Admiralty made the decision to scatter the convoy, due to the intense threat they regarded the Tirpitz as against a closely packed convoy. Following this the German U-boats and aircraft had a field day against the scattered, unescorted merchantmen and 12 ships were sunk. The Tirpitz did make a brief sortie on 5 July 1942 after the Germans learned about the convoy scattering, but due to the efficiency of the U-boats and aircraft in dealing with the convoy the sortie was aborted and Tirpitz returned to port.
There is a claim made by Russian sources that the Tirpitz was attacked and damaged by a Russian submarine during the short sortie. The fleet was attacked by Russian submarine K-21, commanded by Hero of the Soviet Union N. A. Lunin, at 71°22′2″N 24°34′3″E / 71.36722, 24.5675 (45 miles from North Cape, Norway). Lunin fired four torpedoes at the Tirpitz and heard two detonations.[1] There is a degree of controversy on this case: since 1960s most German and British historians deny any torpedo hit, but in Russia this case is studied in naval schools as an example of canonical submarine attack. On 6 July the Tirpitz and her escorts were spotted from the air going south, towards Norway at slow speed (12 knots as opposite to 20 in normal circumstances). From July 8, 1942 to September 6, 1943 the Tirpitz stayed in graving-docks in Trondheim and Narvik (Norway), supposedly under repair.
[edit] Operation Sizilien
Operation Sizilien was a raid on Spitsbergen in September 1943. German troops landed on the island, and supported by naval bombardment from the Tirpitz, Scharnhorst and nine destroyers the Germans occupied the island from 6 September–9 September 1943. This was the only operation in which Tirpitz fired her guns on enemy targets.
[edit] British attempts to destroy the Tirpitz
[edit] Operation Source
The first attempt to destroy 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 HMS X7, and Lieutenant Donald Cameron commanding HMS X6, both received the 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 their 4-ton Amatol side-charges underneath the ship where they detonated an hour later, doing so much damage that Tirpitz was put out of action for several months.
The story of this attack is told in the 1955 film Above Us The Waves.
[edit] Operation Tungsten
Crew members camouflaging the stern section of the ship in case of air attack.
By April 1944, 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's 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 on 2 April, a day earlier than planned, catching 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. 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 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 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 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 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 Tirpitz was left to the Royal Air Force.
[edit] Operations Paravane, Obviate and Catechism
Tirpitz in Norway, 1944
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 this occasion, a smokescreen protected Tirpitz from all but one of the bombs, although one of No. 9 Squadron's bombs 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 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 Lancasters from Lossiemouth in Scotland carrying Tallboy bombs, took place on 28 October. At the last moment, sea-clouds hid Tirpitz, and there was only one near-miss that bent a propeller-shaft.
The Tirpitz capsized in 1945.
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 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. Tirpitz capsized within minutes of the attack, and close to 1,000 German sailors, out of 1,700 aboard, died.
The Luftwaffe failed to intercept the British bombers (some reports say that one bomber was shot down, but British sources ascribe this to anti-aircraft fire) [2]. 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 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. Major Heinrich Ehrler, who both led the defensive sortie in the area of the Tirpitz and was also the commander of the Luftwaffe forces in Norway (Jagdgeschwader 5), was charged with negligence of duty following the sinking—and sentenced to death. His sentence was later reduced to three years of fortress imprisonment and he was stripped of his command and transferred to a fighter unit in Germany.
[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. Amongst other things, the ship's electrical generators were used for a temporary power station, supplying the fishing industry around Honningsvåg with electricity. Near the wreck-site there are artificial lakes along the shore - bomb craters from Tallboy bombs that missed their target. To this day, sections of Tirpitz armour plates are used by the Norwegian Road Authority ("Vegvesen") as temporary road surface material during roadwork[3]. Additionally, a large chunk of the armour plating is held at the Royal Naval 'Explosion!' museum in Gosport, Hampshire.
[edit] Commanding Officers
Construction Indoctrination - KzS Friedrich Carl Topp, 15 January 1941–25 February 1941
KzS Friedrich Carl Topp, 25 February 1941–24 February 1943
KzS Hans Karl Meyer, 24 February 1943–1 May 1944
KzS Wolf Junge, 1 May 1944–4 November 1944
KzS Robert Weber, 4 November 1944–12 November 1944 (KIA)
The ship was launched 1 April 1939 and was to be deployed in a manner similar to Bismarck, as a commerce raider to be sent against Allied merchant shipping in the North Atlantic. However, the fate of Bismarck and other commerce raiders led to Hitler losing faith in the surface navy, and she was instead ordered to be used for limited sorties.
Following the inception of the Arctic convoys and the Commando raid on Vågsøy, Tirpitz was sent to northern Norwegian waters in early 1942, where she spent most of World War II in the fjords. She acted mainly as a fleet in being, tying up Royal Navy resources. She made three offensive sorties during her stay in Norway, two in 1942 and one in 1943. Despite her very limited offensive use, the armed forces of United Kingdom had a great fear of the potential for destruction the Tirpitz represented to Allied shipping and decided to sink her while she was in port. Many operations were launched with this objective in mind, but none were successful in sinking her until she was bombed and capsized on 12 November 1944.
[edit] Offensive actions by the Tirpitz
[edit] Operation Sportpalast
Operation Sportpalast was an attempt to interdict the convoys PQ-12 and QP-8 in early March 1942. PQ-12 sailed from Iceland on 1 March 1942, and QP-8 sailed from Murmansk at about the same time. On 5 March 1942 Tirpitz, escorted by three destroyers, left her base and made a sortie into the Arctic Ocean in the area around Bear Island. During the following days the German force had no luck finding either convoy. Only a single merchant was found and sunk by one of the screening destroyers. On 9 March 1942 Tirpitz was spotted by aircraft from the carrier HMS Victorious, and the German commander, Admiral Otto Ciliax, made the decision to abort the operation following unsuccessful British air attacks.
[edit] Operation Rösselsprung
Operation Rösselsprung was an attempt to intercept the Arctic convoys during the summer of 1942. A naval force consisting of Tirpitz, Admiral Hipper, Admiral Scheer and 9 destroyers were assembled and held ready to move on the convoys passing by. The most famous incident during this operation was the near destruction of Convoy PQ-17 in July 1942. PQ-17, which departed Iceland on 27 June 1942, was heavily escorted, and there was also a powerful Task Force operating in the area. On 4 July 1942 Tirpitz and her escorts left port to sail to a new base. This was perceived by the British Intelligence as an offensive sortie, and the Admiralty made the decision to scatter the convoy, due to the intense threat they regarded the Tirpitz as against a closely packed convoy. Following this the German U-boats and aircraft had a field day against the scattered, unescorted merchantmen and 12 ships were sunk. The Tirpitz did make a brief sortie on 5 July 1942 after the Germans learned about the convoy scattering, but due to the efficiency of the U-boats and aircraft in dealing with the convoy the sortie was aborted and Tirpitz returned to port.
There is a claim made by Russian sources that the Tirpitz was attacked and damaged by a Russian submarine during the short sortie. The fleet was attacked by Russian submarine K-21, commanded by Hero of the Soviet Union N. A. Lunin, at 71°22′2″N 24°34′3″E / 71.36722, 24.5675 (45 miles from North Cape, Norway). Lunin fired four torpedoes at the Tirpitz and heard two detonations.[1] There is a degree of controversy on this case: since 1960s most German and British historians deny any torpedo hit, but in Russia this case is studied in naval schools as an example of canonical submarine attack. On 6 July the Tirpitz and her escorts were spotted from the air going south, towards Norway at slow speed (12 knots as opposite to 20 in normal circumstances). From July 8, 1942 to September 6, 1943 the Tirpitz stayed in graving-docks in Trondheim and Narvik (Norway), supposedly under repair.
[edit] Operation Sizilien
Operation Sizilien was a raid on Spitsbergen in September 1943. German troops landed on the island, and supported by naval bombardment from the Tirpitz, Scharnhorst and nine destroyers the Germans occupied the island from 6 September–9 September 1943. This was the only operation in which Tirpitz fired her guns on enemy targets.
[edit] British attempts to destroy the Tirpitz
[edit] Operation Source
The first attempt to destroy 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 HMS X7, and Lieutenant Donald Cameron commanding HMS X6, both received the 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 their 4-ton Amatol side-charges underneath the ship where they detonated an hour later, doing so much damage that Tirpitz was put out of action for several months.
The story of this attack is told in the 1955 film Above Us The Waves.
[edit] Operation Tungsten
Crew members camouflaging the stern section of the ship in case of air attack.
By April 1944, 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's 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 on 2 April, a day earlier than planned, catching 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. 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 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 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 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 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 Tirpitz was left to the Royal Air Force.
[edit] Operations Paravane, Obviate and Catechism
Tirpitz in Norway, 1944
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 this occasion, a smokescreen protected Tirpitz from all but one of the bombs, although one of No. 9 Squadron's bombs 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 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 Lancasters from Lossiemouth in Scotland carrying Tallboy bombs, took place on 28 October. At the last moment, sea-clouds hid Tirpitz, and there was only one near-miss that bent a propeller-shaft.
The Tirpitz capsized in 1945.
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 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. Tirpitz capsized within minutes of the attack, and close to 1,000 German sailors, out of 1,700 aboard, died.
The Luftwaffe failed to intercept the British bombers (some reports say that one bomber was shot down, but British sources ascribe this to anti-aircraft fire) [2]. 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 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. Major Heinrich Ehrler, who both led the defensive sortie in the area of the Tirpitz and was also the commander of the Luftwaffe forces in Norway (Jagdgeschwader 5), was charged with negligence of duty following the sinking—and sentenced to death. His sentence was later reduced to three years of fortress imprisonment and he was stripped of his command and transferred to a fighter unit in Germany.
[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. Amongst other things, the ship's electrical generators were used for a temporary power station, supplying the fishing industry around Honningsvåg with electricity. Near the wreck-site there are artificial lakes along the shore - bomb craters from Tallboy bombs that missed their target. To this day, sections of Tirpitz armour plates are used by the Norwegian Road Authority ("Vegvesen") as temporary road surface material during roadwork[3]. Additionally, a large chunk of the armour plating is held at the Royal Naval 'Explosion!' museum in Gosport, Hampshire.
[edit] Commanding Officers
Construction Indoctrination - KzS Friedrich Carl Topp, 15 January 1941–25 February 1941
KzS Friedrich Carl Topp, 25 February 1941–24 February 1943
KzS Hans Karl Meyer, 24 February 1943–1 May 1944
KzS Wolf Junge, 1 May 1944–4 November 1944
KzS Robert Weber, 4 November 1944–12 November 1944 (KIA)
