Tirpitz (1941)

The Tirpitz was the second of two Bismarck-class battleships built for the German Kriegsmarine during World War II. Named after Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, the architect of the Imperial German Navy, the ship was laid down at the Kriegsmarinewerft shipyard in Wilhelmshaven in November 1936 and launched two and a half years later, in April 1939. She finally entered into service with the German fleet in February 1941. Like her sister ship, Bismarck, Tirpitz was armed with a main battery of eight 380 mm guns in four twin turrets. As a result of a series of modifications during the war, she became some 2,000 metric tons heavier than the prematurely ill-fated Bismarck.

After completing her sea trials in early 1941, Tirpitz briefly served as the centerpiece of the Baltic Fleet, which had the mission of preventing a possible escape attempt by the Soviet Baltic Fleet. In early 1942, the ship sailed to Norway to act as a deterrent against the Allied invasion and there she attempted to intercept two Allied convoys bound for the Soviet Union, but both missions were a failure. Despite this, the Tirpitz acted as a potential fleet and its mere presence forced the British Royal Navy to maintain a large number of forces in the area in order to prevent its maneuvers.

In September 1943, together with the battleship Scharnhorst, she bombarded the Allied positions on the island of Spitsbergen, the first time that the Tirpitz made use of its main batteries. Shortly afterwards, the battleship was damaged in an attack by British mini-submarines, and subsequently subjected to several massive aerial bombardments. On November 12, 1944, British Lancaster heavy bombers equipped with 5,400-kg Tallboy bombs sank the Tirpitz after delivering two direct hits that flooded it and caused it to list rapidly. A fire on the deck spread to the ammunition store through one of the main battery turrets and caused a huge explosion. The death toll in the tragedy ranges between 950 and 1,204. The wreck was refloated in a joint rescue operation between Norway and Germany, whose work lasted from 1948 to 1957.

Construction and features

The Tirpitz was ordered as Ersatz Schleswig-Holstein, under the contract name "Schlachtschiff G", to replace the aging pre-dreadnought battleship. i> Schleswig-Holstein. The Kriegsmarinewerft shipyard, in Wilhelmshaven, was awarded the contract and the keel of the ship was laid down there on October 20, 1936. The hull was launched on April 1, 1939, with great fanfare and baptized by the daughter of Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, after whom the battleship was named. Adolf von Trotha, former admiral of the Imperial German Navy, spoke at the launching of the battleship, which Adolf Hitler also attended. The work The fitting out of the ship continued after its launch and was completed in February 1941. British bombers repeatedly attacked the port where the Tirpitz was being built, and although no bombs hit it, they did delay the work. She entered fleet service on February 25 to begin her sea trials, which were carried out in the Baltic Sea.

On May 5, 1941, she received Adolf Hitler and Admiral Günther Lütjens on her deck, who had already visited the Bismarck. They were greeted by their commander, Friedrich Karl Topp. On that occasion, Hitler was informed that the Tirpitz would not participate in the Rheinübung operation along with her sister ship, due to delays in the final work.

The Tirpitz displaced 42,900 standard tons and 52,600 fully loaded. Her length was 251 m, her beam was 36 m and her maximum draft was 10.6 m. She was powered by three geared steam turbines Brown, Boveri & Cie that delivered a total of 163,026 hp (121,568 kW) and propelled her to a maximum speed of 30.8 knots (57 km/h) in her speed tests. Her standard crew was 103 officers and 1,962 sailors, although During the war its number was increased to 108 officers and 2,500 sailors. Initially, the Tirpitz was equipped with FuMO 23 radars mounted on the front, rear and rear rangefinders. the crow's nest These were later replaced by FuMO 27 radars, which in turn were also replaced by the FuMO 26 model, which had a series of larger antennas. In 1944 a FuMO 30, known as Hohentwiel, was mounted on her main mast, and on the 105 mm FlaK rangefinder aft of her a was added. FuMO 213 Würzburg .

The main armament of the Tirpitz was composed of eight 380 mm L/52 guns arranged in four twin turrets: two in the bow – Anton and Bruno – and two in the stern – César and Dora. Her secondary armament consisted of twelve 150 mm L/55, sixteen 105 mm L/65 and another sixteen 37 mm L/83 guns, and initially twelve 20 mm anti-aircraft guns, a number increased to 58 later. After 1942, Tirpitz was fitted with eight torpedo tubes above the waterline. Her main armored belt had a thickness of 320 mm and was flanked by a pair of upper and main armored decks, which They were 50 mm and 100–120 mm thick, respectively. The turrets of the main guns were protected by plates of 360 mm on their faces and 220 mm on their sides.

Service History

After its entry into service and the completion of its sea trials, the Tirpitz was assigned to Kiel, from where it underwent intensive training in the Baltic Sea. Admiral Günther Lütjens considered including her in the Rheinübung exercise along with the Bismarck and the Prinz Eugen , but she was discarded in May 1941, because she did not reach the preparation phase on time.

While the battleship was stationed in Kiel, Germany invaded the Soviet Union, so a temporary Baltic Fleet was created to prevent the escape of the Soviet fleet anchored in Leningrad. Tirpitz briefly acted as flagship of the squadron, composed of the heavy cruiser Admiral Scheer, the light cruisers Köln, Nürnberg, Leipzig and < i>Emden, several destroyers and two minesweeper flotillas. The Baltic Fleet, under the command of Otto Ciliax, patrolled off the Åland Islands from 23 to 26 September 1941, after which the unit was disbanded and Tirpitz returned to training. During this training period, Tirpitz tested her main and secondary guns on the old pre-dreadnought battleship. /i> Hessen, which had been converted into a radio-controlled target ship. The British Royal Air Force continued to launch aerial bombing raids on the battleship while it was stationed at Kiel, although none were successful.

Deployment in Norway

Admiral Erich Raeder, head of the Kriegsmarine, proposed deploying the Tirpitz on November 13 in Norway, from where the battleship could attack convoys bound for the Soviet Union, in addition to acting as a deterrent against British naval forces and against an eventual allied invasion of Norway. Adolf Hitler, who had banned the ship from going out to sea in the Atlantic Ocean after the sinking of the Bismarck, agreed to the proposal. The Tirpitz was put in dry dock for a series of modifications for its deployment: its anti-aircraft battery was strengthened and its 105 mm guns in the superstructure near the catapult were moved outboard to increase your shooting angle. It was also used to install two quadruple 533 mm torpedo tubes. The ship's commander, Captain Karl Topp, announced that the ship was ready for combat operations on January 10, and the next day, the Tirpitz left in the direction of Wilhelmshaven in order to hide his true destination from the Allies.

From Wilhelmshaven it set sail at 23:00 on January 14, bound for Trondheim, Norway. British military espionage, which was able to decipher the Enigma machine messages sent by the German navy, detected the departure of the battleship, but bad weather in Great Britain prevented an intervention by its Air Force. Admiral John Tovey, commander in chief of the British Home Fleet, was not aware of the movements of the Tirpitz until January 17, when the German ship was already in Norway, but on the 16th of the same month, a British aerial reconnaissance had located the battleship in Trondheim. The ship then moved to Fættenfjord, just north of Trondheim. The German flotilla movement was codenamed Operation Polarnacht, and the battleship was escorted by destroyers. Richard Beitzen, Paul Jacobi, Bruno Heinemann and Z-29. The ship was moored next to a cliff that protected it of air attacks coming from the southwest, and, in order to camouflage it, the crew cut down trees and placed them on the deck of the battleship. Likewise, additional anti-aircraft batteries were arranged around the fjord, as well as anti-torpedo nets and heavy barriers at the approaches. from the anchorage. Life for the ship's crew was very monotonous during their stay in Norway; Frequent fuel shortages curtailed training and kept the battleship and its escort destroyers moored behind her protective netting. The sailors were mainly engaged in maintaining the battleship and continuously manning the anti-aircraft defenses. Sports activities were organized to keep them busy and in good physical shape.

Operations against allied convoys

Various factors came together to restrict the freedom of the Tirpitz operation in Norway. The most immediate were the fuel shortage and the withdrawal of its covering destroyer force, which was sent to support Operation Cerberus, the passage of the battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau and the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugenthrough the English Channel. For this reason, the attack on the Allied convoy PQ 8 at the end of January had to be cancelled. An attack by British four-engine heavy bombers also planned for the end of January was aborted due to bad weather over the target, which prevented aircraft from locating it. In early February the Tirpitz took part in pre-Operation Cerberus deceptions that distracted the British, and which included sailing out of the fjord and activities that seemed to indicate an exit to the North Sea. Later that month the battleship Tirpitz was joined by the heavy cruisers Admiral Scheer and Prinz Eugen, and various destroyers, although the Prinz Eugen had been torpedoed at the entrance to the Fættenfjord and was out of service for a time.

The Tirpitz and the Admiral Scheer, together with the destroyers Friedrich Ihn, Paul Jacobi, Hermann Schoemann and Z-25, and a pair of torpedo boats, were intended to attack the incoming convoy QP 8 and the outgoing PQ 12 in March 1942 as part of the Operation Sportpalast. The Admiral Scheer, with a design speed of 26 knots (48 km/h), was too slow to operate with the Tirpitz and was left in port, as were the destroyer Paul Jacobi and the two torpedo boats. On March 5, a Luftwaffe reconnaissance aircraft sighted PQ 12 near Jan Mayen Island, although he failed to detect the presence of her powerful escort, composed of the battleship Duke of York, the battlecruiser Renown and four destroyers. The Germans were also unaware that Admiral Tovey was providing distant support to the convoys with the battleship King George V, the aircraft carrier Victorious, the heavy cruiser Berwick and six destroyers. The signals encoded with the German Enigma machine were intercepted and decoded, so the British were aware of the Tirpitz attack and this allowed them to divert the convoys. Tovey attempted to pursue Tirpitz on March 9, but Admiral Otto Ciliax, commander of the German squadron, had decided to return to port the night before. Early in the morning of the 9th, the British launched an air attack, and twelve Fairey Albacore torpedo planes attacked the battleship in three groups, but the Tirpitz evaded all the torpedoes that were launched at it, the gunners German anti-aircraft fire shot down two of the British aircraft and only three men were wounded in the attack. After its completion, the battleship departed for Vestfjord, from where it left for Trondheim. On March 30, thirty-three Halifax bombers returned to attack the battleship, although they failed to make any hits and five of them were shot down. The RAF launched a couple of failed attempts at the end of April, one on the night of the 27th to the 28th of that month with 31 Halifax and 12 Lancaster aircraft, of which five were killed. The following night the British undertook another attack raid, carried out by 23 Halifaxes and 11 Lancasters, but again the German gunners managed to shoot down two enemy aircraft.

The actions of the Tirpitz and its escort destroyers in March consumed around 8,230 tons of fuel oil, significantly reducing their reserves. It took the Germans three months to replace the amount spent in the attempt to intercept the two Allied convoys. Convoy PQ 17, which left Iceland on June 27 bound for the Soviet Union, was the next convoy that Tirpitz and ships stationed in Norway were able to attack during Operation Rösselsprung. It was protected by the battleships Duke of York and USS Washington, and the aircraft carrier Victorious. The Tirpitz, the heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper and six destroyers left Trondheim, while a second task force consisting of Lützow, Admiral Scheer and six destroyers left the same from Narvik. The Lützow and three destroyers collided with rocks that were not on the navigation charts while en route to the meeting and had to return to port. Shortly after the Tirpitz's departure from Norway, the Soviet submarine K-21 fired two torpedoes at her, and although both missed, the Soviets claimed that they had scored two hits on the Tirpitz. battleship. Meanwhile, Swedish espionage had informed the British Admiralty of the German departures and it ordered the dispersion of the convoy. Aware of having been detected, the German surface units aborted the operation and withdrew to make way for an attack by U-boat submarines and Luftwaffe aircraft. The scattered Allied ships, deprived of the protection of their escort, were easy targets for the Germans, who sank 21 of the 34 solitary vessels. The Tirpitz returned to the Alta Fjord via the Lofoten Islands.

The Germans moved the Tirpitz to Bogenfjord, near Narvik, after Operation Rösselsprung. By then, the battleship needed a major overhaul, but as Hitler had prohibited the ship from making the dangerous journey back to Germany, the overhaul was done in Trondheim. The ship left Bogenfjord to return to Fættenfjord, off Trondheim, on 23 October. The anchorage defenses were reinforced with the installation of additional anti-aircraft guns and the provision of double anti-torpedo nets around the battleship. The repairs were carried out in limited phases, so that the Tirpitz was partially operational for most of the process. A caisson was built around the stern of her to replace the ship's propellers.During the process the British attempted to attack the battleship with two human torpedoes, but the rough seas dislodged them from the fishing boat that was transporting them and they could not be used. The overhaul had been completed by December 28 and Tirpitz began sea trials; She conducted artillery exercises in the Trondheim Fjord on 4 January 1943. Karl Topp was promoted to rear admiral and replaced by Captain Hans Meyer on 21 February. Five days later, the battleship Scharnhorst was ordered to reinforce the fleet in Norway and Vice Admiral Oskar Kummetz was given command of the warships stationed in the Nordic country.

Allied convoys to the Soviet Union had temporarily ceased by the time the Scharnhorst arrived in Norway. Admiral Karl Dönitz, Raeder's replacement since the Battle of the Barents Sea on December 31, 1942, decided that the ships needed an opportunity to operate together, so he ordered an attack on the island of Spitsbergen, where a station was located. British meteorological station and a refueling base. A 152-man garrison of the exiled Free Norwegian Forces defended several settlements and outposts in Spitzbergen. The two battleships, escorted by ten destroyers, left port on 6 September. In a ruse, the Tirpitz raised a white flag as it approached the island the next day. During the bombardment of the island, the Tirpitz fired 52 shells from its main batteries and 82 of the 150 mm secondaries, which marked the first and only time that the battleship fired its main battery against an enemy target. The attackers landed an assault group that destroyed the ground facilities and took seventy-four prisoners. The battleships had destroyed their objectives by 11:00 and, consequently, began to return to their Norwegian ports.

British attacks on Tirpitz

Operation Source

The British were determined to destroy the Tirpitz and eliminate the threat it posed to Allied lines of communication in the Arctic. After repeated attacks, ineffective bombing and the failed attempt with human torpedoes in October 1942, the British opted for the new X Craft mini-submarines. The planned attack, Operation Source, would include offensives against the Tirpitz, Scharnhorst and Lützow. The X Craft were towed by large submarines to their destinations, where they could pass under anti- torpedo to place a powerful mine under the target. Ten of these submarines were assigned to the operation, scheduled between 20 and 25 September 1943, of which only eight arrived in Norway for the attack, which began on 22 September. Three of the mini-submarines ( X5 , x6 and x7 ) successfully raffled the defenses of the Tirpitz , and two of them managed to put their mines. The X5 was detected about 200 m from the nets and sunk by a combination of cannonade and depth charges.

The mines caused serious damage to the battleship, as the first exploded in front of the Caesar turret and the second about 50 m from the port bow. A fuel oil tank and armor plates were ruptured, and a hole was formed. large dent in the lower part of the hull and in the bulkheads of the double armored belt. The battleship took on about 1,430 tons of water in the fuel tanks and in the empty spaces of the double hull to port, which caused a list of one to two degrees, although this was corrected by a counterflooding of the starboard side. Seawater damaged all turbogenerators in generator room number 2 and all but one generator in room number 1 was disabled by broken steam pipes and several power cables. The Dora turret was torn from its supports and could not be maneuvered, which was particularly serious because there were no heavy lifting cranes in Norway powerful enough to lift it and place it again. The two Arado Ar 196 seaplanes i> of the Tirpitz were hit by the detonation and completely destroyed. Repairs were carried out by the repair ship Neumark; Historians Robert Garzke and Robert Dulin stated that the successful repair effort was "one of the most notable feats of naval engineering during World War II." The repairs lasted until April 2, 1944, and the following day the battleship He did complete speed tests in the Alta Fjord.

Operation Tungsten

The British were warned that the Neumark and the repair crews left in March, which indicated that the Tirpitz was close to operating again, so they scheduled a major air attack for April 4, 1944—Operation Tungsten—that would involve the aircraft carriers Victorious and Furious, and the escort carriers Emperor, Fencer, Pursuer and Searcher. The deciphering of the signals from the Enigma machine revealed to the British that the Tirpitz had scheduled to depart at 05:29 on April 3 for sea trials, so its attack was brought forward to that day. The offensive consisted of 40 dive bombers and 40 escort fighters in two waves that scored fifteen direct hits and two nearby, and in which a single aircraft was lost. This was achieved thanks to the surprise achieved by the British aircraft carrier, since on the Tirpitz they needed twelve to fourteen minutes to maneuver all the anti-aircraft batteries. The first wave attacked at 05:29, as the tugboats were preparing to remove the battleship from her mooring; The second wave reached its objective an hour later, at 06:30, and despite the alertness of the German gunners, only one of the planes was shot down.

This air attack caused serious damage to the ship and several deaths. William Garzke and Robert Dulin claim that the attack killed 122 men and wounded 316 others, while Hildebrand, Röhr and Steinmetz maintain that there were 132 casualties and 270 wounded, including Tirpitz's captain Hans Meyer. Two of the 150 mm turrets were destroyed by the bombs, as well as the two Arado Ar 196 seaplanes. The bombs also started several fires on board and the shocks from the detonations damaged the starboard turbine, while the salt water used to put out the fires reached the boilers and contaminated the water supply. 2,000 tons of water flooded the battleship, mainly from the two close hits, which pierced the side of the hull with shrapnel, but also due to the water used to fight the fire. Dönitz ordered the ship to be repaired at no cost despite the fact that He knew that the battleship could no longer be used in surface actions due to insufficient combat support. The repair work began at the beginning of May and the important equipment and workers needed for the work were transferred by destroyers from Kiel to the Alta Fjord within the space of three days. By June 2, the Tirpitz was already able to navigate under its own power and towards the end of the month artillery tests were possible. During this repair process, the 150mm batteries were modified to allow anti-aircraft use and 380mm shells with special fuzes were supplied to create anti-aircraft fire barriers.

Operations Planet, Brawn, Tiger Claw, Mascot and Goodwood

The British planned a series of carrier attacks for the next three months, but bad weather forced their cancellation. A repeat of Operation Tungsten, codenamed Operation Planet, was planned for April 24; Operation Brawn, which was to have been carried out by 27 bombers and 36 fighters from the aircraft carriers Victorious and Furious, was to take place on May 15, and Operation Tiger Claw was designed for May 28. Victorious and Furious were joined by the aircraft carrier Indefatigable for Operation Mascot on 17 July, which was to have been carried out by 62 bombers and 30 fighters.

The weather finally improved in late August, when the series of Goodwood attacks were launched. Operations Goodwood I and II occurred on 22 August, when the aircraft carriers Furious, Indefatigable and Formidable, and the escort carriers Nabob and Trumpeter took off 38 bombers and 43 escort fighters in two sorties. The attacks did not inflict damage to the Tirpitz and three of the attacking aircraft were shot down. The Goodwood III took place on the 24th of the same month, composed only of carrier aircraft. of the fleet with 48 bombers and 29 fighters that made two hits to the German battleship with minor damage. One of the bombs, weighing 725 kg, penetrated the upper and lower armored decks and lodged in switchboard room number 4, but the fuse had been damaged and the bomb did not detonate. The other, weighing 235kg, exploded, but caused only superficial damage. In return, six British aircraft were shot down. Goodwood IV took place five days later, on the 29th, with 34 bombers and 25 fighters from Formidable and Indefatigable being interfered by a thick fog that prevented them from hitting the Tirpitz, whose gunners shot down a Fairey Firefly and a Corsair. The battleship fired 54 rounds from her main guns, 161 from her 150 mm guns and up to 20% of her light anti-aircraft ammunition.

Operations Paravane and Obviate

The ineffectiveness of most of the attacks launched by the Air Arm of the British fleet in mid-1944 led to the task of destroying the Tirpitz being entrusted to Group No. 5 of the RAF. It was decided that four-engine Lancaster bombers would carry powerful bombs capable of penetrating the strong armor of the German battleship. The British opted to use the Tallboy bombs weighing more than 5.4 tons, developed in 1943 by Barnes. Wallis, as the primary weapon against the Tirpitz. The first attack, Operation Paravane, took place on 15 September 1944, when 23 Lancasters—17 carrying a Tallboy and the remaining six with twelve JW mines, which took off from the Russian base at Yagodnik, made a single hit on the Tirpitz's bow with a Tallboy that completely penetrated the battleship and It exploded at the bottom of the fjord. Between 800 and 1000 tons of water flooded the bow of the German ship and caused a serious increase in its forward trim. The ship was limited to 8-10 knots (15-19 km/h) and the shock of the impact severely affected the fire direction equipment. Serious damage from this attack persuaded the German naval command to refit the battleship only as a floating battery. The repairs were estimated to take nine months, but patching of the holes would be completed within a few weeks to allow the Tirpitz to move further south to Tromsø. On October 15, the battleship traveled the 370 km from Tromsø under its own power, the last trip of her operational life.

The RAF made a second attempt on 29 October, when the Tirpitz had been moored off Håkøy Island, near Tromsø. Thirty-two Lancasters attacked Tallboy again with bombs during Operation Obviate. As in Operation Paravane, Squadrons No. 9 and No. 617 attacked together, but narrowly missed the target, partly due to bad weather. The underwater explosion affected the rudder and port shaft, and caused some flooding. The Tirpitz's 380 mm fragmentation shells were ineffective against the high-level bombers, although one of the attackers was hit by ground-mounted anti-aircraft guns. After this new attack, the mooring of the Tirpitz was improved. battleship with the creation of a sand bank under the ship and around it to prevent it from listing and anti-torpedo nets were installed. The Tirpitz maintained an inclination of one degree to port from previous attacks that was not corrected with a counterflood in order to preserve as much buoyancy as possible. The ship was also prepared for its new role as a floating artillery platform: its fuel was limited to what was necessary to supply the turbogenerators and the crew was reduced to 1,600 officers and sailors.

Operation Catechism

Operation Catechism, the last British assault on Tirpitz, took place on 12 November 1944. The German battleship again fired its 380 mm batteries against the bombers, which approached at 09:35. The main guns forced them to temporarily disperse, but were unable to put an end to the attack. A force of 32 Lancasters from No. 9 and No. 617 Squadrons dropped 29 Tallboy bombs on the ship., two of which hit it. Other bombs landed on the anti-torpedo net barrier and produced enormous craters in the seabed that removed the sand bank built to prevent the battleship from listing. One of the bombs penetrated the armored deck between the Anton and Bruno turrets without exploding, but the second hit the center of the ship, between the seaplane catapult and the funnel, and caused fatal damage, blowing up the side of the ship and opened a huge hole in the bottom of its hull; completely destroyed an entire section of the armored belt. A third projectile was able to hit the port side of the Caesar turret. The impact in the center of the battleship caused a flood and a rapid inclination to port of between 15 and 20 degrees. In ten minutes this list increased to 30-40 degrees, so the captain ordered the ship to be abandoned. The progressive flooding increased the inclination to 60° around 09:50, when it seemed to temporarily stabilize, but eight minutes later a huge explosion shook the Caesar turret. The roof of the turret and part of its rotating structure were thrown 25 m high and fell on a group of men swimming towards the shore. The Tirpitz quickly rolled over on itself and her superstructure sank to the bottom of the sea.

After the attack, rescue operations attempted to free the sailors trapped inside the hull of the Tirpitz. The workers managed to rescue eighty-two men after cutting the lower plates of the hull. Death figures vary: John Sweetman states that about a thousand men of a crew of nineteen hundred died; Niklas Zetterling and Michael Tamelander agree on the number of deceased. Both Siegfried Breyer and Erich Gröner believe that the dead amount to 1,204, but Gordon Williamson lowers the figure to 971. William and Robert Dulin put the casualties of the attack and sinking "around 950." Approximately two hundred survivors of the sinking were transferred to the heavy cruiser Lützow in January 1945. The wreck of Tirpitz remained at the site of the sinking until after the end of the war, when a German company Norway began salvage operations that lasted from 1948 to 1957. Some fragments of the battleship are still sold by a Norwegian company.

The performance of the Luftwaffe in the defense of the Tirpitz was highly criticized after its loss. Major Heinrich Ehrler, commander of III./Jagdgeschwader 5—3rd Group of the 5th Fighter Wing—was blamed for the Luftwaffe's failure to intercept the British bombers, although many Veterans of his unit believe he was a scapegoat for the ineptitude of his superiors. He was subsequently court-martialed in Oslo and threatened with the death penalty, although he was eventually sentenced to three years in prison, was released a month later, demoted, and reassigned to an Me 262 fighter squadron in Germany. She was shot down over Berlin on April 4, 1945. Ludovic Kennedy wrote in his history of the battleship Tirpitz that "he lived an invalid's life and died a cripple."

Mentions in the Wehrmachtbericht

The Tirpitz is referred to three times in the Wehrmachtbericht, the daily bulletin issued by the Wehrmacht High Command about the military situation on all fronts. Being quoted in this newsletter was quite an honor. Due to the nature of Wehrmachtbericht dispatches, your information is not entirely accurate. For example, in relation to the attack on April 4, it is stated that the Tirpitz shot down four British aircraft, along with two more by a patrol boat. In reality, only two enemy aircraft were shot down.