November 12, 1944: The sinking of the Tirpitz.

 November 12, 1944: The sinking of the Tirpitz.

 The Tirpitz was, to this date, the largest completed european battleship in history and was in service with the German Kriegsmarine from 1941 to 1944.

 The Tirpitz was in service in Norway from 1942.  After a British attack on the ship near Alta, the Tirpitz moved to Tromsø in October 1944 and lay there off the island of Håkoya.

 The British kept attacking.  On November 12, 1944 there was an attack with 32 Lancaster bombers.

  The conditions for the attack were ideal: clear visibility and the smoke machines that were supposed to hide the ship from attacks are not working.  29 Tallboy bombs (5.4t bombs with over 2t explosives) were dropped, two of them hit the Tirpitz.

 There was an explosion on board which lifted turret C from its bed.  The crew was then given the order to abandon ship.  

The ship capsized.  Of the almost 2,100 crew, more than 1,200 lost their lives and almost 900 were saved. 

 84 survivors had to be laboriously freed from the hull of the capsized battleship.

 The photo shows me next to the memorial at the spot where the Tirpitz was when it was destroyed.  The memorial is made of an armor plate of the Tirpitz.  

In the second photo you can see the last remains of the ship and the salvage structures, this is only possible at low tide.

Both pictures were made in February 2022.