Which German battleship was sunk by Lancaster bombers in a Norwegian fjord in November 1944?
"of 19 ships. On 26 December Bey formed a patrol line using his destroyers. After ordering the destroyers back to base, ""Scharnhorst"" was located by British cruisers, who opened fire upon her. During the ensuing Battle of North Cape, ""Scharnhorst"" was sunk by the British fleet, including the British battleship ""Duke of York"". From 30 to 31 May 1944 ""Z29"", ""Z33"", ""Z34"", and ""Z38"" formed a patrol line between Bear Island and the North Cape. Between 30 June and 1 July ""Z29"", ""Z31"", ""Z33"", ""Z34"", and ""Z38"", sortied to Bear Island. On 31 July German battleship ""Tirpitz"", ""Z29"", ""Z31"", ""Z33"","
"including the writer John Renshaw Starr. Sinking of The Lancastria On 17 June 1940 an estimated 9,000 British Army soldiers were embarked aboard the Clyde-built cruise liner, later converted to troopship, , which was attacked and sunk by German Junkers Ju 88 bombers, mainly from Kampfgeschwader 30, taking with her around 4,000 victims. This is the worst disaster in British maritime history and the worst loss of life for British forces in the whole of World War II. Winston Churchill banned all news coverage of the disaster on learning of it and it remains largely forgotten by history. A ""Lancastria"""
"critical to the outcome of the war on the Eastern Front. The Alta area was one of Germany's largest naval bases during the war. ""Tirpitz"", which was one of the world's largest and most powerful battleships, was anchored for nearly two years in Kåfjord. Altafjord was also a base for many other German warships among them the battleship and the heavy cruiser as well as dozens of German destroyers and supply ships. On 12 November 1944, ""Tirpitz"" was hit by bombs and the ship capsized in the bay outside of Tromsø. The timber building that the Tirpitz Museum is located"
"Bardufoss also had the task of providing aerial support for naval operations in the area. When British Avro Lancasters began to bomb the battleship Tirpitz on 12 November 1944 in Operation Catechism at Håkøya near Tromsø, calls to Bardufoss failed to save the ship. The fighters failed to scramble in time and the Tirpitz was sunk in ten minutes. Two Tallboy bombs Luftwaffe ace Heinrich Ehrler was originally stripped of command and sentenced to 3 years in prison because of this. He later died in combat when he rammed an American B-17 Flying Fortress over Germany. The 339 Squadron was"
"little now remains of the airfield at Elgin, the concrete crest is a war memorial for those who served there. Further operations against ""Tirpitz"" took place between September and November 1944. Operation Catechism finally resulted in the German battleship being sunk near Tromsø on 12 November 1944. Thirty-eight Lancasters of No. 9 Squadron and No. 617 Squadron launched from Lossiemouth, Kinloss and Milltown and destroyed the vessel with Tallboy bombs. Nearly 50 years later, No. 617 Squadron transferred to Lossiemouth and was based there between 1993 and 2014. Examples of the Tallboy, Grand Slam and Up Keep (bouncing bomb) were"
"intercepted and sank the British auxiliary cruiser on 23 November 1939, while on patrol off Faroe Islands. On 8 June 1940, during the latter part of the Norwegian Campaign, Marschall and part of his force (flagship ""Gneisenau"", and her sister-ship ""Scharnhorst"") fell in with British aircraft carrier and two destroyers ( and ) about 280 miles west of Harstad, Norway. In a two-hour action, ""Glorious"" and her accompanying destroyers were all sunk, in exchange for damage to ""Scharnhorst"" (struck by one of ""Acasta's"" torpedoes). Although the battle was a German victory, Marschall had engaged ""Glorious"" despite orders to avoid action."
"in 1944 to air strikes in April (Operation Tungsten), July (Operation Mascot), August (Operation Goodwood), and September (Operation Paravane), after which ""Tirpitz"" was relocated to Tromsø, where a final bombing raid in November (Operation Catechism) sank the battleship. Altafjord Altafjord (; ; ) is a fjord in Alta Municipality in Finnmark county, Norway. The long fjord stretches from the town of Alta in the south to the islands of Stjernøya and Seiland. The long river Altaelva empties into the fjord at the town of Alta. At Stjernøya and Seiland islands, the fjord splits into two straits before emptying into the"
"Altmark Incident The ""Altmark"" Incident (Norwegian: ""Altmark""-affæren; German: ""Altmark-Zwischenfall"") was a naval incident of World War II between British destroyers and the German tanker ""Altmark"", which happened on 16–17 February 1940. It took place in what were, at that time, neutral Norwegian waters. On board the ""Altmark"" were some 300 allied prisoners (officially internees), whose ships were sunk by the pocket battleship ""Graf Spee"" in the Southern Atlantic Ocean. British naval forces cornered the tanker and later the destroyer ""Cossack"" attacked the German ship near the Jøssingfjord and freed all the prisoners, killing eight German seamen with firearms and wounding"
"able to convince Hitler not to pay off all of the remaining ships of the surface fleet. However. the ""Kriegsmarine"" continued to lose what few capital ships it had. In September, the battleship ""Tirpitz"" was put out of action for months by a British midget submarine, and was sunk a year later by RAF bombers at anchor in Norway. In December, he ordered the battleship ""Scharnhorst"" (under ""Konteradmiral"" Erich Bey) to attack Soviet-bound convoys, after reconsidering her success in the early years of the war with sister ship ""Gneisenau"", but she was sunk in the resulting encounter with superior British"
"allied airmen. Three are from an Avro Lancaster of 438 Squadron that crashed into the Baltic around 29–30 August 1944. On 15 December a Ju 88 night fighter shot down an Avro Lancaster of 106 Squadron, which had a crew of eight. Only three bodies washed ashore, one of them on Anholt; the others were never recovered. A daily ferry from Grenå on the eastern coast of Jutland takes about three hours to reach Anholt. The ferry detours around the wind farm, which will compensate for the increased fuel consumption in order to maintain sailing schedules. Anholt has an airport"
"service, renaming her ""SA 7"". ""SA 7"" was lost in a fire in the North Sea in August 1943. After the end of the Second World War, the British Admiralty investigated the Commando Order killings in Norway, and sought out German officers suspected of involvement. In a war crimes trial, ""Generaloberst"" (Colonel General) Nikolaus von Falkenhorst was sentenced to death for his role in the Commando Order executions that occurred in Norway during the occupation, including the killing of ""MTB 345""<nowiki>'</nowiki>s crew. ""Sicherheitsdienst"" (Security Service, SD) commander Hans Wilhelm Blomberg was executed in January 1946 for his role in the"
"Operation Catechism Operation Catechism was the last of nine attempts to sink or sabotage the Kriegsmarine battleship during the Second World War. The ship was finally sunk in this attempt. On 12 November 1944, RAF Bomber Command dispatched thirty Avro Lancaster heavy bombers from No. 9 Squadron RAF and No. 617 Squadron RAF (including a film unit aircraft from No. 463 Squadron of the Royal Australian Air Force) from RAF Lossiemouth to ""Tirpitz""s mooring in Tromsø, Norway. Each bomber carried a single 12,000 pound (5,400 kg) Tallboy bomb. No. 9 Squadron was led by S/L A.G. Williams DFC and No."
"in or translated into English, including: MV Wilhelm Gustloff MV ""Wilhelm Gustloff"" was a German military transport ship which was sunk on 30 January 1945 by in the Baltic Sea while evacuating German civilians, German officials, refugees from Prussia, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Estonia and Croatia and military personnel from Gotenhafen (now Gdynia) as the Red Army advanced. By one estimate, 9,400 people died, which makes it the largest loss of life in a single ship sinking in history. Constructed as a cruise ship for the National Socialist ""Kraft durch Freude"" (Strength Through Joy) organisation in 1937, she had been requisitioned"
"they were en route to Kaafjord, and ""Tirpitz"" was protected by a smoke screen by the time the strike force arrived. Few of the British airmen were able to spot the battleship, and their attacks did not inflict any significant damage. German losses were limited to a patrol craft, and three British aircraft were destroyed or damaged beyond repair by Kaafjord's defenders. A group of German submarines attempted to intercept the carrier force as it returned to base, without success. Two U-boats were sunk near the carriers by British patrol aircraft and several others were damaged. In August 1944, the"
"MV Wilhelm Gustloff MV ""Wilhelm Gustloff"" was a German military transport ship which was sunk on 30 January 1945 by in the Baltic Sea while evacuating German civilians, German officials, refugees from Prussia, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Estonia and Croatia and military personnel from Gotenhafen (now Gdynia) as the Red Army advanced. By one estimate, 9,400 people died, which makes it the largest loss of life in a single ship sinking in history. Constructed as a cruise ship for the National Socialist ""Kraft durch Freude"" (Strength Through Joy) organisation in 1937, she had been requisitioned by the ""Kriegsmarine"" (German navy) in"
"invasion of Norway in April 1940. ""Leopard"" and ""Wolf"" were assigned to support the attack on Bergen while ""Luchs"", was tasked to help capture Kristiansand. ""Jaguar"" ferried reinforcements to Kristiansand. As the heavy cruiser was proceeding to Germany without an escort two days later, she too was crippled by a British submarine off the Danish coast and all five boats responded to render assistance. While escorting a group of minelayers returning from laying a minefield in the Skaggerak on 30 April with ""Wolf"", ""Leopard"" was sunk when she was accidentally rammed by one of the minelayers. The 6th Flotilla was"
"northern Norway to participate in operations against convoys to the Soviet Union, culminating in the Battle of the Barents Sea on 31 December 1942, where she was damaged and forced to withdraw by the light cruisers and . Enraged by the defeat at the battle, Adolf Hitler ordered the majority of the surface warships scrapped, though Admiral Karl Dönitz was able to convince Hitler to retain the surface fleet. As a result, ""Admiral Hipper"" was returned to Germany and decommissioned for repairs. The ship was never restored to operational status, however, and on 3 May 1945, Royal Air Force bombers"
"major warship ever sunk in war by air attack and the first major warship ever to be sunk by dive bombing. Lucy later also became a fighter ace flying the Skua. These two mostly-Skua squadrons suffered heavy losses during an attempt to bomb the German battleship Scharnhorst at Trondheim on 13 June 1940; of 15 aircraft in the raid, eight were shot down and the crews killed or taken prisoner. Among the latter were both squadron commanders, Captain R. T. Partridge (RM) and Lieutenant Commander John Casson (RN). Although it fared reasonably well against Axis bombers over Norway and in"
"breached the Dortmund–Ems Canal – an inland waterway linking the Ruhr with other areas – with Tallboy bombs, draining a six-mile (10 km) section. The enormous rail marshalling yard at Hamm was badly hit, leaving some 9,000 workers permanently engaged carrying out running repairs. On 12 November the battleship ""Tirpitz"" was sunk by RAF Tallboy bombs near Tromsø, Norway. The ship, known as the 'Lonely Queen of the North' had seen little action through lack of fuel, and spent much of the war moored in a remote fjord. Around this time the RAF began reducing its attacks on synthetic oil"
"numbers. None of these were dive bombers. No Allied Air Force operated a modern dive bomber at the outbreak of the Second World War, although both the Royal Navy and the US Navy had shipboard dive bombers. On 10 April 1940, 16 Blackburn Skuas flying at extreme range from the naval air station at Hatston, Orkney led by Lieutenant Commander William Lucy sank the German cruiser Königsberg in Bergen harbour, whilst trying to prevent the German invasion of Norway. On the German side Stukas augmented or replaced artillery support for their lightly armed parachute and airborne troops. The invasion of"
"the Command's two elite squadrons flew to their staging airfield in the Soviet Union on the night of 11/12 September, and attacked on 15 September using heavy bombs and air-dropped mines. All of the British aircraft returned to base, though one of the Lancasters later crashed during its flight back to the United Kingdom. Following Operation Paravane, the German Navy's commander decided to use ""Tirpitz"" as a static artillery battery to protect the town of Tromsø. The Allies were unable to confirm the extent of the battleship's damage, and conducted two further heavy bomber raids against her in late 1944."
"for the United Kingdom, arriving at Scapa to replenish her fuel, ammunition and stores on New Year's Day 1944. ""Belfast"" sailed to Rosyth on 10 January, where her crew received a period of leave. February 1944 saw ""Belfast"" resume her Arctic convoy duties, and on 30 March 1944 ""Belfast"" sailed with the covering force of Operation Tungsten, a large carrier-launched Fleet Air Arm airstrike against the German battleship . Moored in Altafjord in northern Norway, ""Tirpitz"" was the German navy's last surviving capital ship. Forty-two Fairey Barracuda dive-bombers from and made up the strike force; escorted by eighty fighters. Launched"
"1942 and 1944 mainly in the North Sea and off Norway. On 9 April 1943 the Soviet submarine ""K-21"" fired six torpedoes at ""Brummer"" off Båtsfjord in Finnmark. The minelayer was not hit. In 1944 ""Brummer"" resumed mining operations in the Baltic. She was used for mining until the spring of 1945 when she was employed as part of the armada that evacuated German troops and civilians from the path of the Red Army. The end of ""Brummer"" came on 3 April 1945, when she was wrecked by RAF bombers while dry docked for repairs at the Deutsche Werke shipyard"
"of 10/11 February 1944, 15 Soviet aircraft attacked the battleship, but did not cause any damage. By 17 March, the repairs to ""Tirpitz""s armament, machinery and hull were complete, but several minor repair tasks were outstanding. During the period the ship was under repair, ""Scharnhorst"", the only remaining operational German battleship, was sunk on 26 December during the Battle of the North Cape. Following this engagement the Royal Navy stopped deploying battleships to cover convoys travelling to and from the Soviet Union. By this stage of the war the Allies also had large numbers of anti-submarine and anti-aircraft escort ships"
"and was forced to enter Norwegian territorial waters near Bergen on 1 December 1939. After the submarine had been allowed to carry out rudimentary emergency repairs, ""Trygg"" escorted her out of Norwegian waters the next day. During the Norwegian Campaign ""Trygg"" was commanded by Lieutenant Frantz W. Munster and served in an air defence and escort role against the invading Germans outside Molde and Åndalsnes in April 1940 (Åndalsnes landings). After surviving numerous air attacks the ship was finally sunk at Åndalsnes 25 April 1940. As the torpedo boat was anchored up in the harbour the Luftwaffe bombers first attacked"
"ports, including Trondheim, Kristiansand, Bergen, Bogenbucht, and Hammerfest. During this time, ""U-771"" was re-assigned to the ""11th U-boat Flotilla"" on 1 August 1944; she remained a part of that flotilla until 30 September, when she was again re-assigned, this time to the 13th U-boat Flotilla. On 14 October 1944, ""U-771"" finally left Hammerfest and headed into the Arctic Ocean. Twenty-nine days after she left Hammerfest, on 11 November 1944, ""U-771"" was sunk in the Andfjord near Harstad, Norway, by torpedoes fired by the British submarine . All 51 of her crewmembers were killed. ""U-771"" took part in three wolfpacks, namely."
"lift the turret and place it back on its bearings. The ship's two Arado Ar 196 floatplanes were thrown by the explosive concussion and completely destroyed. Repairs were conducted by the repair ship ; historians William Garzke and Robert Dulin remarked that the successful repair effort was ""one of the most notable feats of naval engineering during the Second World War."" Repairs lasted until 2 April 1944; full speed trials were scheduled for the following day in Altafjord. On 12 November 1944, the ship was destroyed by Avro Lancaster bombers. For this action, the commanders of the craft, Lieutenant Donald"
"On 21 June 1940, a Walrus (""P5666"") of 700 Squadron on the cruiser found the German battleship ""Scharnhorst"" but ""Manchester"" did not engage. 25 September 1940, Walrus L2247, embarked on HMAS Australia, was shot down by French Vichy fighters at Dakar and crashed into the sea all 3 crew perished. Trailing German capital ships in the lead up to the Battle of the Denmark Strait, Walrus ""L2184"" of 700 NAS from was damaged by shellfire from ""Prinz Eugen"" in the Denmark Strait on 23 May 1941 while still on its catapult. The final successful attack on an enemy submarine by"
", and were deployed based on ""Ultra"" intelligence and attacked the German convoy KS 357 between Listerfjord and Egersund. The freighters ""Greif"" and ""Cornouailles"" were sunk, as were the minesweepers ""M 427"" and ""M 416"" and the submarine chasers ""UJ 1221"", ""UJ 1223"" and ""UJ 1713"". ""Algonquin"" took part in the sinking of the three submarine chasers and one merchant vessel. On 22 November, ""Algonquin"" was part of the screen for airstrikes on Norway. On 27 November ""Algonquin"" was among the escorts for ""Implacable"" during raids on German shipping along the coast of Norway. The destroyer returned to the region"
"the Norwegian Sea, the carrier and her two escorts, the destroyers and , were intercepted by the German battleships and . The carrier and her escorts were sunk in two hours, roughly west of Harstad, with the loss of 1,519 men; there were only 45 survivors. The single survivor from ""Acasta"" was rescued by the Norwegian steam merchant ""Borgund"" which also saved 38 men from one of ""Glorious""' lifeboats. All 39 men saved by ""Borgund"" were set ashore at Tórshavn in the Faroe Islands on 14 June. ""Scharnhorst""s salvoes hit ""Glorious"" at 16:32, before her torpedo-bombers could be launched. ""Scharnhorst""s"
"Operation Mascot Operation Mascot was an unsuccessful British carrier air raid conducted against the German battleship ""Tirpitz"" at her anchorage in Kaafjord, Norway, on 17 July 1944. The attack was one of a series of strikes against the battleship launched from aircraft carriers between April and August 1944, and was initiated after Allied intelligence determined that the damage inflicted during the Operation Tungsten raid on 3 April had been repaired. A force of 44 British dive bombers and 40 fighters took off from three aircraft carriers in the early hours of 17 July. German radar stations detected these aircraft while"
"HNoMS Olav Tryggvason The minelayer HNoMS ""Olav Tryggvason was built by the naval shipyard at Horten in the early 1930s and had build number 119. She served in the Royal Norwegian Navy until captured by the Germans in 1940. The Germans renamed her first Albatros II, and a few days later Brummer"". She was wrecked in a British bombing raid in northern Germany in April 1945. The ""Olav Tryggvason"" was considered a well armed and balanced ship, with an engine plant consisting of both steam turbines and diesel engines. ""Olav Tryggvason"" was the first Norwegian warship equipped with a basic"
"on the night of never to sail again; ""Scharnhorst"" was sunk at the Battle of the North Cape on 26 December 1943. German commerce raiding against British north Atlantic convoys was made easier by the capture of Norway and France in 1939 and 1940. An abortive sortie by the cruiser ""Admiral Hipper"" ended at Brest, at the west end of the Brittany peninsula, on 27 December 1940. After five weeks of bombing to no effect, the ship put to sea on 1 February 1941, sank numerous ships and returned on 14 February, before sailing Germany using the roundabout route via"