Anniversary of the Sinking of the Tirpitz

Thanks for posting that, Simon.......a very interesting memento indeed.

 

Sure they could. The 105s on board could reach any plane flying in WWII. Over 40,000 ft.

 

Looking at:
http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNGER_41-65_skc33.htm
They also had the elevation to do so even with the mountains blocking out significant portions of their firing arcs. Whether they were alerted to the raid in time would be the only thing I can see that would have prevented them engaging the RAF bombers.

 

The scrapping of the Tirpitz began in the late forties. My father was a young naval officer then, and was sent to Tromsø as a liason officer to supervise the work since many tons of ammo still remained in the wreck. A lot of dead sailors were also still inside the hull, so they had to deal with that to as they cut their way through the wreck.
My mother was born (1923) and raised in Tromsø, but when the war broke out in 1940 she, my uncle and my grandparents lived in Narvik. They had to flee from the bombardment and returned to Tromsø, having lost all their posessions. In November 1944 she witnessed the sinking of the Tirpitz, and thus got to see both the beginning and the end of the war.

Enclosed you will find:

1: a picture showing 38 cm shells retrieved from the Tirpitz wreck.
2: the bow section, cut off from the hull
3: front section of a Tallboy bomb found inside the wreck

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The ultimate reference on Tirpitz is the book 'Tirpitz - Hitler's last battleship' by Kjetil Åkra and John Asmussen. The project was supported by public funding, and the book contains all information available on the Tirpitz at the time being:

After two years of work, the book Tirpitz - Hitler's siste slagskip (Tirpitz - Hitler's last battleship) was published 10th of November 2006. The book has been made for Norwegian Midt-Troms Museum.
It is the biggest book ever made of any single German warship.

The book is composed of 368 pages and is printed in A4 format (21 x 29,7 cm / 8.26 x 11.4 inches).

The majority of the book is printed in full colour in order to show colour photos of Tirpitz, aircraft, drawings, 3-D images, maps etc in the best possible way. The book contains about 600 photos and illustrations. Of these are more than 300 photos of Tirpitz and more than 100 of them have never been published before.

Worlds leading experts in different areas have contributed to ensure that the information in the book is as good and accurate as possible. For the first time you will be able to see aircraft profiles of all aircraft involved in reconnaissance and air attacks against Tirpitz as well as German aircraft that was supposed to protect the Tirpitz. They have all been especially made for this book and shows autentic camouflage and ID markings.

A chapter is dedicated to the life onboard the Tirpitz and is based on numerous interviews of veterans and survivors from Tirpitz.

For the first time ever it is also possible to see a 3-D model of Tirpitz in print.

Also, for the first time ever it is now possible to show a list of fallen from Tirpitz which contains 1150 names and other details.

The book also contains drawings showing all known paint schemes Tirpitz ever had. Several chapters deals with technical aspects of the ship and contains text, drawings and photos.

Comprehensive chapters deals with what went wrong the day the Tirpitz were sunk, why Luftwaffe failed to assist the battleship and details about the Bardufoss airfield they operated from. The book also describes the aftermath of the sinking for some of those involved.

The book is only available from Midt-Troms Museum and a few book stores in northern Norway.


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Here is a high resolution picture of the city. Håkøya island where the Tirpitz was sunk you will find on the left hand side of the picture, between the city and the landscape in the background.

http://www2.arcticlightphoto.no/pano/tos52/