In 1939, the German navy launched the Bismarck-class battleship Tirpitz as a challenge to the British navy that had total dominance of the North Sea. It was a formidable adversary by any measure, yet the Tirpitz was little more than a showpiece during the war as the German navy struggled to find an appropriate role for the warship.
The Tirpitz, The Leviathan Of The German Imperial Navy
The German battleship Tirpitz was the heaviest and most fearsome battleship ever deployed by a European power. At over 50,000 tons when fully loaded, the Bismarck-class warship was over two football fields long and capable of a top speed of 30.5 knots — about 35 miles an hour.
It was armed with a main battery of eight 15-inch guns in four twin turrets, more than 50 smaller guns of various sizes, and eight torpedo tubes. It had a crew complement of 2,608, and at a cost of 200 million Reichmarks, the Tirpitz cost the equivalent of about 900 tanks.
Operations In The Baltic Sea And North Sea
Germany deployed the Tirpitz in late 1941 as the flagship of their Baltic Fleet, where it was used to prevent the breakout of the Soviet Union’s Baltic fleet stationed in Leningrad. It saw no action in this operation, its presence apparently enough to successfully keep the Soviet navy bottled up.
In January 1942, the Tirpitz was sent to Norway as a means of diverting British sea power to the North Sea instead of other theater areas. The Tirpitz was a fearsome threat that weighed heavily on the planners of the British Navy, acting as a “fleet in being.” Its presence in the North Sea alone, even when at anchor at Kåfjord in Norway, required the British navy to devote considerable naval resources to guard against any action the German navy might have planned.
But those forces, in the end, proved effective in deterring any major operation involving the Tirpitz. The German naval command was hesitant to use their prized battleship in any operation where it might be seriously damaged, and so while the Tirpitz could pull British resources from other areas, it could do very little itself, rendering the awesome might of the battleship worse than useless. As the war went on, 900 additional tanks would have been much more useful to the German army.
The only major offensive action involving the Tirpitz came on Sep. 8, 1943, when its battlegroup bombarded allied forces on the island of Spitzbergen. It would be the only time the Tirpitz would fire its main guns.
Early Attacks
Already, the British were determined to sink the Tirpitz. On March 27, 1942, the British launched an operation to neutralize the German harbor facility at St. Nazaire, which was the only port capable of servicing the mammoth Bismarck-class battleships. The bold commando raid, led by the Special Operations Executive, succeeded in knocking out the German docks.
The British then concentrated their tactical energies on destroying the Tirpitz. From January to April 1942, the British launched multiple air assaults on the battleship. None were successful.
The British then rethought their strategy and opted for an underwater assault. The first of these was dubbed Operation Title. Human-manned chariot torpedoes were towed to Fottenfjord where the Tirpitz was moored and the plan was for these torpedoes to streak underwater toward the battleship. However, bad weather wrecked the plan before it was even launched and the British navy had to go back to the drawing board.
Operation Source Is Born
The British decided to risk another attack, but this time instead of chariot torpedoes, they decided to deploy a flotilla of the newly developed X-craft. The X-craft were called midget submarines for good reasons; each X-craft was just over 51 feet long and not even six feet abeam and the 35-ton miniature vessels could only hold a complement of four submariners.
When compared to the terrible majesty of the Tirpitz, the notion that such tiny craft could take out such a large vessel seemed ludicrous. But it was thought that the tiny X-craft were capable of sneaking through the harbor defenses to lay devastating explosive charges on the battleship. A plan was set and dubbed Operation Source.
Operation Source was to be an attack on multiple German warships. The X5, X6, and X7 were detailed to assault the Tirpitz. The X5 commanded by Lieutenant Henty-Creer was seen entering the fjord but disappeared, never to be seen again. The X6 commanded by Lieutenant Donald Cameron managed to get close to the Tirpitz against all odds, but the X7 commanded by Lieutenant Basil Charles Godfrey Place encountered defensive nets that temporarily ensnared his boat.
Place managed to pass these hazards and emerged close to the battleship. He proceeded underwater at full speed toward the Tirpitz and laid charges along its keel. The X7, however, became enmeshed again in the anti-submarine nets. In his desperation to escape, Place was forced to surface, exposed to heavy fire from the Germans. The damaged X7 sank, leaving Place and one other crew member as captives and two crew members lost at sea.
A Watery Grave For The Tirpitz
Despite the damage inflicted by Operation Source, the Tirpitz was repaired. However, it would not be long before the British would launch sustained attacks against the battleship. In April 1944, 40 bombers from half a dozen carriers landed 14 hits against the Tirpitz, causing heavy damage and casualties. In September of the same year, the British intensified their attacks with 27 Avro Lancaster bombers, which dealt immense damage to the battleship. Finally, on November 12, 1944, more bombers scored direct hits, causing the Tirpitz to capsize and sink.
The sinking of the Tirpitz proved that airpower was a superior force in the modern era of warfare. While the ship was repaired initially, it was rendered unfit for the open sea and eventually met its watery end.