Over the icy waters of the Arctic Circle, near the secluded fjord of Tromsø in northern Norway, thirty British Lancasters, piloted by Britain’s finest airmen, dove into position on one of the most crucial missions of their careers.
Their sights were set on the German Battleship Tirpitz, a monolithic floating citadel and the Third Reich’s crown jewel. Recognized as a maritime powerhouse throughout Europe, Hitler lauded it as “the Pride of the German Navy,” while Winston Churchill ominously dubbed it “the Beast.”
To Churchill, this behemoth was not just a ship but a supreme threat to the heart of the Allies. The German menace was tasked with guarding the Baltic and preventing any supplies from reaching the Soviets, keeping the Allies fractured.
Its continued existence compelled Churchill to risk his nation’s most elite aviators in a bid to neutralize it even as it hid in the waters of the Arctic Circle.
Yet, Tirpitz was not bound to be an easy target. After enduring over 30 large-scale Allied attacks, it was still alive, earning the title of an “unsinkable battleship.”
However, on November 12, 1944, the moon’s gleam on the Tromsø fjord was eclipsed by the British Lancaster bombers. The distant hum became a deafening roar for the Germans on board Tirpitz and along the coast, as they scrambled to their anti-aircraft batteries.
As they manned their positions, the skies ignited in a tempest of FLAK and explosive fury. Amidst that maelstrom, the Tirpitz faced a force unlike anything it had seen before:
The Lancasters’ hulls were loaded with 12000-pound ‘earthquake bombs’ called “Tallboys.” A new weapon with terrible power. If they couldn’t sink the Tirpitz, nothing would.
source
Is that young lord hardthrasher of ambridge? Doing a doc about the senior service? Blimey!
Choice of film clips is bizarre, much of it bearing no relation to the equipment used on missions.
Ok it was the lancs wot dunnit- stand easy!
Tirpitz was a waste of time ,money and material .
I recall another ship attack by the tall boy bomb. If an aircraft could not find its target, they were supposed to bring the bomb back home, due to limited supply. On one mission, after failing to locate its target, the aircraft was returning home. On the way it spotted a large ship and decided to attack. The bomb hit almost dead center, and passed right thru the ship. The flight crew thought the bomb was a dud. After passing thru the ship, the bomb armed and detonated. The exploding lifted the ship out of the water, breaking it in half, and promptly sank. The aircrew couldn’t claim a kill without disclosing they didn’t follow orders.
Brilliant narrator 👏🏼👏🏼👍👍
clips used are for illustration purposes only, Those who wana winge go watch something else
9:08 Wow! 360mm of armour? It would need a Boyes rifle to be able to penetrate that much armour – maybe a bazooka! Amazing that a mere Tallboy bomb could do it!
If the British had been that concerned about the Bismark class , wouldn't they have built the Lion class?
this is a fantastic channel, thank you very much!
That thing you said at the very end…..
Not true
❤
showing off Scharnhorst or her sister ship in this video Bismarck and Tirpitz had twin turrets not triple
tallboy bomb was 12 THOUSAND pounds not 12 hundred GET YOUR FACTS STRAIGHT OR DON'T PUT IT ONLINE
1200 pound tallboy bomb didn't sound right. Looked it up, 12,000 pounds.
I'm still very impressed by this channels researchers. Yes, all the info is available for consumption. However, it is a complex process to put all this info into a single 27 minute video and make sense while doing it. Great job. I have been a amateur historian for most of my life (62 urs) and This has become one of my favorite YT channels. 😊
One correction, the 12,000lb Tallboy wasn't called "the earthquake bomb", that title went to it's big brother, the 22,000lb Grand Slam.
It would be nice if your video was more historically correct. The photos you are showing claiming to be Tirpitz are actually Sharnhorst and Gneisenau. You can tell the difference because some of your photos show ships with triple gun turrets where Tirpitz had her main battery guns in twin turrets. Most British battleships of the time also had their main batery guns in twin or quadruple turrets with the exceptions being HMS Nelson and Rodney being the only British battleships with triple 16 inch main gun turrets. It gets very irritating when the person making the video either doesn't care or thinks that we are too stupid to know what these ships look like because the photos and film are over 80 years old.
It was plan ZED.
A good story, but with misleading and inappropriate videos.