Tirpitz

Tirpitz was the sister ship of the 42,000-ton German battleship Bismarck. She was armed with eight 38 cm. (15 in.) guns, but the only time she employed them was against shore installations on Spitzbergen, for the stringent conditions Hitler put on the vessel's use rarely allowed her to put to sea.

In March 1942 she left Trondheim in Norway to attack an Arctic convoy. The British Admiralty, alerted by ULTRA intelligence, had already ordered the Home Fleet to sea. But errors aboard the flagship and by the Operational Intelligence Centre of the Admiralty's Intelligence Division, then inexperienced in handling ULTRA in such a complex situation, allowed her to escape. The threat of her attacking another Arctic convoy, PQ17, led to Pound's orders for it to scatter, with disastrous results, though Tirpitz was at sea for only a few hours before being ordered to return. So great a threat was she that desperate measures were taken by the British to try and sink her. An abortive operation with human torpedoes was mounted in October 1942, and in September 1943midget submarines crippled her for six months. A series of daring air attacks then damaged her again, making her non-operational. She moved south to Tromsö to act as a floating battery in case of invasion, but constant air attacks—there were 22 altogether including one by Soviet aircraft—eventually reduced her to a hulk. Rubble was dumped under her to prevent her capsizing, but on 12 November 1944 she received two direct hits from Tallboy bombs delivered by Dam Buster bombers, and capsized with the loss of 1,204 lives. Her crew were heard singing ‘Deutschland über alles’ as she sank.

Bibliography

Kennedy, L. , Life and Death of the Tirpitz (London, 1979).