() was the second of two s built for Nazi Germany's (navy) prior to and during the Second World War. Named after Grand Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, the architect of the (Imperial Navy), the ship was laid down at the in Wilhelmshaven in November 1936 and her hull was launched two and a half years later. Work was completed in February 1941, when she was commissioned into the German fleet. Like her sister ship, , was armed with a main battery of eight guns in four twin turrets. After a series of wartime modifications she was 2000 tonnes heavier than , making her the heaviest battleship ever built by a European navy.
After completing sea trials in early 1941, briefly served as the centrepiece of the Baltic Fleet, which was intended to prevent a possible break-out attempt by the Soviet Baltic Fleet. In early 1942, the ship sailed to Norway to act as a deterrent against an Allied invasion. While stationed in Norway, was also intended to be used to intercept Allied convoys to the Soviet Union, and two such missions were attempted in 1942. acted as a fleet in being, forcing the British Royal Navy to retain significant naval forces in the area to contain the battleship.
In September 1943, , along with the battleship , bombarded Allied positions on Spitzbergen, the only time the ship used her main battery in an offensive role. Shortly thereafter, the ship was damaged in an attack by British mini-submarines and subsequently subjected to a series of large-scale air raids. On 12 November 1944, British Lancaster bombers equipped with "Tallboy" bombs scored two direct hits and a near miss which caused the ship to capsize rapidly. A deck fire spread to the ammunition magazine for one of the main battery turrets, which caused a large explosion. Figures for the number of men killed in the attack range from 950 to 1,204. Between 1948 and 1957, the wreck was broken up by a joint Norwegian and German salvage operation.
Design
The two s were designed in the mid-1930s by the German as a counter to French naval expansion, specifically the two s France had started in 1935. Laid down after the signing of the Anglo-German Naval Agreement of 1935, and her sister were nominally within the limit imposed by the Washington regime that governed battleship construction in the interwar period. The ships secretly exceeded the figure by a wide margin, though before either vessel was completed, the international treaty system had fallen apart following Japan's withdrawal in 1937, allowing signatories to invoke an "escalator clause" that permitted displacements as high as .
displaced as built and fully loaded, with a length of , a beam of and a maximum draft of . Her standard crew numbered 103 officers and 1,962 enlisted men; during the war this was increased to 108 officers and 2,500 men. She was powered by three Brown, Boveri & Cie geared steam turbines, each driving a screw propeller, with steam provided by twelve oil-fired Wagner superheated water-tube boilers. Her propulsion system developed a total of and yielded a maximum speed of on speed trials.
She was armed with eight 38 cm SK C/34 L/52 guns arranged in four twin gun turrets: two superfiring turrets forward—Anton and Bruno—and two aft—Caesar and Dora. Her secondary armament consisted of twelve 15 cm L/55 guns. The main-battery and secondary guns were aimed from three fire-control director stations, using mechanical computers to plot target distances and courses and to calculate angles for the guns. On top of each fire-control station a rangefinder was mounted in a rotating cupola. The heavy anti-aircraft armament consisted of sixteen 10.5 cm L/65. Anti-aircraft fire control for these guns was provided by four stabilized SL-8 directors. The middle and light anti-aircraft armament consisted of sixteen L/83, and initially twelve C/30 anti-aircraft guns. The number of 2 cm guns was eventually increased to 58. After 1942, eight above-water torpedo tubes were installed in two quadruple mounts, one mount on each side of the ship.
As built, was equipped with Model 23 search radars mounted on the forward, foretop, and rear rangefinders. These were later replaced with Model 27 and then Model 26 radars, which had a larger antenna array. A Model 30 radar, known as the , was mounted in 1944 in her topmast, and a Model 213 fire-control radar was added on her stern Flak rangefinders.
The ship's main belt was thick and was covered by a pair of upper and main armoured decks that were and thick, respectively. The 38 cm turrets were protected by thick faces and thick sides.
Service history
was ordered as as a replacement for the old pre-dreadnought , under the contract name "G". The shipyard in Wilhelmshaven was awarded the contract, where the keel was laid on 20 October 1936. The hull was launched on 1 April 1939; during the elaborate ceremonies, the ship was christened by Ilse von Hassell, the daughter of Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, the ship's namesake. Adolf von Trotha, a former admiral in the Imperial German Navy, spoke at the ship's launching, which was also attended by Adolf Hitler. Fitting-out work was completed by February 1941. British bombers repeatedly attacked the harbour in which the ship was being built; no bombs struck , but the attacks slowed construction work. was commissioned into the fleet on 25 February for sea trials, which were conducted in the Baltic.
After sea trials, was stationed in Kiel and performed intensive training in the Baltic. While the ship was in Kiel, Germany invaded the Soviet Union. A temporary Baltic Fleet was created to prevent the breakout of the Soviet fleet based in Leningrad. was briefly made the flagship of the squadron, which consisted of the heavy cruiser , the light cruisers , , , and , several destroyers, and two flotillas of minesweepers. The Baltic Fleet, under the command of Vice Admiral Otto Ciliax, patrolled off Åland from 23 to 26 September 1941, after which the unit was disbanded and resumed training. During the training period, tested her primary and secondary guns on the old pre-dreadnought battleship , which had been converted into a radio-controlled target ship. The British Royal Air Force (RAF) continued to launch unsuccessful bombing raids on while she was stationed in Kiel.
Deployment to Norway
Grand Admiral Erich Raeder, the commander of the , proposed on 13 November 1941 that be deployed to Norway. The ship would be able to attack convoys bound for the Soviet Union, and act as a fleet in being to tie down British naval assets and deter an Allied invasion of Norway. Hitler, who had forbidden an Atlantic sortie after the loss of , agreed to the proposal. The ship was taken into dock for modifications for the deployment. The ship's anti-aircraft battery was strengthened, and the 10.5 cm guns on the superstructure next to the catapult were moved outboard to increase their field of fire. The two quadruple 53.3 cm torpedo tube mounts were also installed during this refit. The ship's commander, Karl Topp, pronounced the ship ready for combat operations on 10 January 1942. The following day, left for Wilhelmshaven, a move designed to conceal her actual destination.
The ship left Wilhelmshaven at 23:00 on 14 January and made for Trondheim. British military intelligence, which was capable of decrypting the Enigma messages sent by the German navy, detected the departure of the vessel, but poor weather in Britain prevented action by the RAF. Admiral John Tovey, the commander in chief of the British Home Fleet, was not made aware of s activities until 17 January, well after the ship had arrived in Norway. On 16 January, British aerial reconnaissance located the ship in Trondheim. then moved to the Fættenfjord, just north-east of Trondheim. The movement was codenamed Operation Polarnacht (Polar Night); the battleship was escorted by the destroyers , , and for the voyage. The Norwegian resistance movement transmitted the location to London. She was moored next to a cliff, which protected the ship from air attacks from the southwest. The ship's crew cut down trees and placed them aboard to camouflage her. The crew also frequently hid the entire ship from aerial reconnaissance and attacks inside a cloud of artificial fog, created using water and chlorosulfuric acid. Additional anti-aircraft batteries were installed around the fjord, as were anti-torpedo nets and heavy booms in the entrance to the anchorage. was known as the "Lonely Queen of the North" because she was so rarely deployed,Winston, George, (1 May 2018) "The Effects of the Lonely Queen Still Seen Among the Trees of Norway ", War History Online; accessed 2020.04.01. and life for her crew was very monotonous. Frequent fuel shortages curtailed training and kept the battleship and her escorts moored behind their protective netting. The crew was primarily occupied with maintaining the ship and continuously manning anti-aircraft defences. Sports activities were organised to keep the crew occupied and physically fit.
Operations against Allied convoys Several factors hindered s freedom of operation in Norway. The most pressing were shortages of fuel and the withdrawal of the German destroyer forces to support Operation Cerberus, the movement of the battleships and and the heavy cruiser through the English Channel. These caused a planned attack against the outbound convoy PQ 8 at the end of January to be abandoned. A planned British air attack at the end of January by four-engined heavy bombers was disrupted by poor weather over the target, which prevented the aircraft from finding the ship. In early February, took part in the deceptions that distracted the British in the run-up to Operation Cerberus. These included steaming out of the fjord and the appearance of preparations for a sortie into the North Sea. Later that month, the ship was reinforced by the heavy cruisers and and several destroyers. had been torpedoed by a British submarine at the entrance to the Fættenfjord, and was temporarily out of action.
In March 1942 and , along with the destroyers , , and and a pair of torpedo boats, were intended to attack the homebound convoy QP 8 and the outbound Convoy PQ 12 as part of (Operation Sports Palace). , with a design speed of , was too slow to operate with and was left in port, as was the destroyer . The two torpedo boats were also released from the operation. On 5 March, Luftwaffe reconnaissance aircraft spotted PQ 12 near Jan Mayen Island; the reconnaissance failed to note the battleship or the battlecruiser , both of which were escorting the convoy, along with four destroyers.
Unknown to the Germans, Admiral Tovey was providing distant support to the convoys with the battleship , the aircraft carrier , the heavy cruiser , and six destroyers. Enigma intercepts again forewarned the British of s attack, which allowed them to reroute the convoys. Admiral Tovey attempted to pursue on 9 March, but Admiral Otto Ciliax, the commander of the German squadron, had decided to return to port the previous evening. An air attack was launched early on the 9th; twelve Fairey Albacore torpedo bombers attacked the ship in three groups, and successfully evaded the torpedoes. Only three men were wounded in the attack. s anti-aircraft gunners shot down two of the British aircraft. After the conclusion of the attack, made for Vestfjord, and from there to Trondheim, arriving on the evening of 13 March. On 30 March, thirty-three Halifax bombers attacked the ship; they scored no hits, and five aircraft were shot down. The RAF launched a pair of unsuccessful strikes in late April. On the night of 27–28 April, thirty-one Halifaxes and twelve Lancasters attacked; five of the bombers were shot down. Another raid, composed of twenty-three Halifaxes and eleven Lancasters, took place the following night. Two of the bombers were shot down by the German anti-aircraft defences.