Target Tirpitz: X-Craft, Agents and Dambusters - The Epic Quest to Destroy Hitler’s Mightiest Warship. Patrick Bishop
817 and 832 Squadrons left the carrier to comb the waters to the south-east. By now Tirpitz had been reunited with one of its destroyers, the Friedrich Ihn, returned from refuelling at Narvik, and was west of the Lofotens, steaming hard for home. Over the horizon, only 115 miles to the west-north-west, sailed the Home Fleet.
The Albacores climbed through patchy cloud and gusting snow into a lightening sky. At 8.03 a.m. Sub-Lieutenant Tommy Miller piloting the lead Albacore spotted Tirpitz ploughing through the leaden seas. The trim hull of the Friedrich Ihn, tiny in comparison, skimmed along beside it, a mile or so to the west.
He radioed back the news. The twelve Albacores of the strike force were waiting for the signal to go. Before they flew off Tovey left them in no doubt of the hopes that they carried with them. ‘A wonderful chance which may achieve most valuable results,’ he signalled. ‘God be with you.’
For a few minutes after Miller’s aircraft had made contact, the battleship sailed blindly on. The mood on board Tirpitz was subdued. After years of preparations and months of anticipation the ship’s first foray had been desperately disappointing. For all the expenditure of energy and adrenalin, for all the massive consumption of scarce fuel oil, the expedition had resulted only in the sinking of a single merchant ship. At the moment the Albacores arrived, Ciliax was having breakfast in his quarters and Topp was resting in the lookout room. The ship was in the temporary charge of the navigating officer, Korvettenkapitän Gerhard Bidlingmaier, who was writing up his log when he heard a shout of ‘aircraft astern!’ and ran to the bridge.
He ordered the ship to full speed and the Arados into the air. All over Tirpitz, alarm bells clanged and men ran to their action stations. Ciliax abandoned his breakfast and Topp his rest and they rushed to the bridge. It was clear that a torpedo attack was imminent. Ciliax took the decision to stay on the same heading until the Arados were airborne then change course and run for the shelter of Vestfjord which lay behind the Lofotens and led into the haven of Narvik.
Only one Arado managed to take off. It turned towards the pursuers, dodging in and out of the drifting cloud cover, apparently directed towards the shadowers by Tirpitz’s radar. One of the Albacore’s gunners opened fire but without serious effect. The Arado was more successful. One Albacore was hit and the observer, Sub-Lieutenant A. G. Dunworth, wounded in the thighs. Despite the attentions of the Arado, the shadowers stuck with the battleship, and at 8.30 a.m. radioed back her change of course towards the narrow entrance of the Moskenes Strait which opened into Vestfjord.
The strike force, formed up into four sub-flights of three aircraft, was now heading straight for Tirpitz. It was led by Lieutenant Commander Bill Lucas of 832 Squadron. Lucas was the most senior pilot in the force. He was not, though, the most experienced. He had arrived on the squadron only a few weeks before to replace Lieutenant Commander Peter Plugge who had disappeared with his crew in atrocious weather off the Norwegian coast on a futile search for the Prinz Eugen as it sailed for Trondheim. According to Charles Friend, Lucas was an ‘unknown quantity’. In contrast, his subordinate in the operation, Lieutenant Commander Peter Sugden of 817 Squadron, had been flying operationally for two years and had won the DFC.
At 8.40 a.m. Lucas sighted the target in the distance, creaming strongly through the corrugated seas, and the Albacores fell in behind. It seemed to Friend that it was taking an eternity to reach it. They were ‘flying upwind against a thirty-five knot wind and ninety knots air speed, to a target which was steaming directly downwind at twenty-five knots. Our closing speed was therefore thirty knots – about the speed at which one carelessly drives in a built up area.’
On spotting the target Lucas had taken them up to 3,500 feet, hoping the scattered cloud would mask their approach. Friend found that, as they climbed, ice began to form on the wings. ‘The huge ship seemed to be there for hours as we crawled towards her,’ he recalled, ‘although it was only ten minutes from sighting to attack.’
The subflight led by Lucas was approaching Tirpitz on the port side. The other three were to starboard. The recommended drill for a squadron-strength, twelve-aircraft torpedo attack on a ship was for the force to overhaul the target then turn back onto it. Two subflights were to attack on the port quarter and two on the starboard, dropping their torpedoes in a fan-shaped pattern from a height of fifty to a hundred feet across her bows. This would cover a ninety-degree arc, making it difficult for a big ship to take evasive action and greatly increasing the chances of a hit. The method had its dangers. The quarter attack exposed the aircraft to the ship’s guns which were presented with an ideal opportunity as the pilots approached, flying straight and level, low and slow, to drop their torpedoes at an optimum range of between 800 and 1,000 yards.
Lucas, however, decided against the textbook approach. They were only catching up at a rate of a mile every two minutes and the danger of icing up was increasing. He gave the order for each sub-flight to attack in its own time, choosing its own trajectory. The concentration of force mustered by a coordinated attack was now lost. If a torpedo did hit Tirpitz it would be more by luck than design.
Lucas led his sub-flight in first. As he got closer there was a break in the cloud which he thought would expose their position. He decided on an immediate attack from the side rather than a head-on approach. At 9.18 a.m. the three Albacores dropped almost to sea level and released their torpedoes. According to Friend the others watched the attack with ‘astonishment … the subflight was led down immediately on Tirpitz’s port beam leaving the other three [subflights] badly placed should she turn to port which she forthwith did’.14 Lucas claimed, no doubt sincerely, that he had released his torpedoes from 1,000 yards, the outer limit if there was to be any chance of success. Friend’s account says it was closer to a mile.
From the bridge, Topp could see the torpedoes hit the water and head towards his ship at forty knots. Without hesitation he shouted to the helmsman to wrench the ship hard to port. His instruction was countermanded immediately by Ciliax, standing alongside him, who ordered the helmsman to steer to starboard. There was a moment of silence. The Topp spoke quietly but firmly. ‘I am in command of this ship, sir, not you,’ he told his chief, and repeated his order. The helmsman obeyed. A photograph, crisscrossed by the rigging of the wings of the Albacore from which it was taken, shows the ship turning with a tightness that seems extraordinary given its size, making a near semi-circle in the water.15 The torpedoes from Lucas’s flight cruised harmlessly astern, with the nearest one passing 150 yards away. The second 817 subflight now crossed over to the port side and launched another broadside attack.
All the Tirpitz’s many guns were blazing in unison, supported by those of the Friedrich Ihn, but the pilots stuck to their course, releasing their torpedoes at 1,000 yards. Once again, they missed. The two remaining 817 Squadron flights under Sugden had anticipated the first evasive action and cut the corner of the turn to port to place themselves ahead. But Tirpitz now changed course again and swung sharply to starboard, taking her back on an easterly tack. Instead of a frontal attack they were forced to come at her from behind.
The 817 Squadron crews were heading into a blizzard of shells and bullets. Film taken from deck level shows two low-flying Albacores desperately clawing for height as gunfire whips up ramparts of spray in the sea right behind them. A close-quarters attack was suicidal. ‘With shots from her coming all around us I dropped my torpedo at almost extreme range,’ admitted an 817 pilot, Lieutenant Commander John Stenning, later.16 One Albacore of 832 Squadron and another of 817 Squadron were hit just as they released their torpedoes and tumbled into the sea. There was no chance of rescue by the fleeing battleship and all six on board were killed or drowned.
Despite the furious defence they encountered, the attackers came remarkably close to scoring a hit. According to the Tirpitz log, three of the torpedoes went wide, but a fourth passed ten yards from the stern. A near miss, though, counted for nothing. The determination and sacrifice was in vain. No damage had been done to the target. The only German casualties of the attack were three men wounded by machine-gun fire from the Albacores.
As the torpedo planes dwindled into the distance, relief swept the ship. The decks jingled with shell cases. In the brief action, Tirpitz’s sixteen large-calibre 105mm flak guns, the size of field artillery, had fired off 345 rounds. The 37mm light flak guns had got through 897 rounds and the 20mm guns 3,372.