SLAYING OF HITLER'S BEAST
THE end was apocalyptic. Within 11 minutes of the first ‘earthquake bomb’ striking amidships, the giant warship had toppled over, belching fire, smoke and steam and trapping those who had not been killed in the explosions in a coffin of Krupp steel.
As the crews of the Lancaster bombers of 617 — The Dambusters — and 9 Squadron headed home through the gin-clear Norwegian morning sky on November 12, 1944, they could congratulate themselves on one of the great coups of the war.
After four years of relentless attacks by sea and air, the ship Churchill branded ‘The Beast’ was dead. When he heard the news at the British embassy in Paris, he dashed off a telegram to Stalin. ‘RAF bombers have sunk the Tirpitz,’ it said. ‘Let us rejoice together.’
Before her annihilation 75 years ago this week, the 42,500-ton battleship had cast a long shadow over Britain’s war. She was faster, longer ranged and better armed than anything in the British fleet, and was said to be unsinkable.
She mesmerised the admirals, who feared the terrible destruction she could wreak if she broke out into the Atlantic, cutting the vital lifeline to the Americas.
Even sitting in port, her very existence was enough to tie up vital naval assets, forcing the most powerful ships in the Home Fleet to keep a constant watch.
Churchill’s concern bordered on obsession. ‘The crippling of this ship would alter the entire face of the naval war,’ he declared in January 1942. ‘The loss of 100 machines and 500 airmen would be well compensated for.’
From October 1940, Tirpitz was the target of 24 air and sea operations requiring the highest levels of skill and courage.
FEAR of her power inspired a heroic feat, the blowing-up of Brittany’s St Nazaire dock in March 1942, depriving the battleship of the only haven big enough to take her, should she make it to the Atlantic.
It also triggered the shaming decision to scatter the escort accompanying the Arctic convoy PQ17 — carrying hundreds of tanks and planes and other supplies to the West’s Russian Allies — when it was thought the battleship was at sea, leaving PQ17 to the mercy of German bombers and submarines.
Tirpitz was launched on a cold April day in 1939 in the Wilhelmshaven naval base in the presence of the Führer. Hitler knew little about naval warfare, but he appreciated the symbolism of big ships and their pyschological effect on his enemies, and Tirpitz and her sister ship Bismarck were seen as emblems of Nazi invincibility.
Bismarck’s demise, sunk after an epic chase during her first operation in May 1941, was a huge boost to British morale. But as long as Tirpitz was afloat, her destruction remained an imperative. The Navy dreamed of destroying her in an epic sea battle that would neutralise the Kriegsmarine (Nazi navy) for ever.
In March 1942, they got their chance when Tirpitz set out from its Norwegian base at Trondheim to attack an Allied convoy carrying supplies for the Russians.
The Home Fleet put to sea under Admiral Jack Tovey, who, after orchestrating the sinking of the Bismarck, thirsted to complete the double. The longed-for clash never came, but the Navy got close enough for an air attack from the carrier Victorious.
Fleet Air Arm crews in obsolescent Albacore biplanes flew through a blizzard of antiaircraft fire to drop torpedoes that failed to find their mark only due to the superb seamanship of the battleship’s commander, Karl Topp.
Then it was the RAF’s turn. It launched several unsuccessful attacks while Tirpitz was still being fitted out.
There were three mass raids after the move to Trondheim, but the narrow Faettenfjord where she lay gave natural protection, and the RAF’s underpowered bombs made no impression on her armour.
And so desperation forced innovation. The next scheme was to send two-man crews wearing immersion suits and breathing apparatus, astride submerged electric-powered ‘chariots’, to penetrate the battleship’s lair.
The man in front steered, while his mate behind was charged with cutting through the heavy steel nets protecting the target and placing a detachable warhead on the nose to the battleship’s hull.
An appeal for volunteers for ‘hazardous service’ provided a crop of daredevils driven by boredom, ambition or a thirst for adventure.
After months of training in Scottish lochs, Operation Title was launched.
Two chariots were carried on the deck of a small cargo boat, Arthur, skippered by Leif Larsen, one of a band of intrepid Norwegian mariners who operated a clandestine shuttle service ferrying agents and saboteurs between the Shetlands and Norway.
The crews were concealed in a secret compartment below decks and, for the last leg of the voyage, the chariots would be towed on steel hawsers under the hull.
The Arthur set off from Lunna Voe on October 26, 1942. After several setbacks, Larsen managed to bluff his way through the German controls at the entrance to the Trondheim fjord.
Ten miles from their target, a storm blew up. The chariots broke from their moorings and sank. They were forced to head for the Swedish border, 50 miles away and ran into a German patrol.
In the ensuing firefight, Able Seaman Bob Evans was wounded. The others escaped, but Evans was captured. He was executed as a saboteur three months later.
SUCCESS had been tantalisingly close, and the failure lent urgency to another exotic plan using midget submarines known as X-craft.
For the scheme to work, the men inside the claustrophic hulls would need extraordinary reserves of physical and mental stamina and courage.
Once again, when the call went out for unmarried men, aged under 24 and good swimmers of ‘strong and enduring physique’, there was a rush of