Niklas Zetterling - Tirpitz: The Life and Death of Germanys Last Super Battleship

Despite his warm clothes, Lieutenant Commander Sommer suffered from the bitter cold. It penetrated his boots and proceeded up his legs until his entire body felt frozen. Already as a young cadet, he had learned how to relax to ignore the cold, but this technique seemed to be ineffective as he stood on the pier and gazed upon the huge battleship lying at anchor in the roadstead.

At this time of the year the days were very short, with late mornings and the dusk coming early. Presently, the sun had risen above the white mountains. It made the trees cast shadows and created a yellowish glow on the battleship. The asymmetric camouflage, which was intended to break up the contours of the ship, had been painted over. Instead, the hull and parts of the superstructure had been dyed dark grey, while higher parts had been given a lighter grey surface, to blend with the snow-clad mountains slopes surrounding the battleships mooring place. Despite the distance, Sommer could also discern the many buoys on the water above the torpedo nets.

With a length of 251 meters, the Tirpitz like her almost identical sister ship Bismarck , which had been sunk on the Atlantic in May 1941was an impressive spectacle, even though the majestic mountains surrounding Troms diminished her appearance by comparison. Since she had been accepted by the German Navy on 25 February 1941, the British had feared her, but she had seldom been allowed an opportunity to fire with her eight 38cm guns upon an enemy. Rather, she had long been a hunted prey, subjected to innumerable British attacks. Except for an air attack in April 1944, her complement of more than 2,000 had always escaped virtually unharmed.

The latest air attacks however had damaged the battleship significantly. In fact, she could no longer be regarded as fit for action. She had been lying in Kaafjord and been given superficial repairs, but the damage to her bow did not allow speed much in excess of ten knots. In such circumstances, it was utterly unthinkable to challenge the Allied command of the seas. She was still a weapon, though, and had thus been sent to her mooring near Kvalya, to assume the role of a floating battery. To the crew of what was deemed to be one of the worlds most powerful battleships, it was an ignominious task, but it was no fault of theirs.

As the battleship was no longer expected to sail on the open seas, some 600 of the crew, mainly from the machinery, had been transferred to land duties and were commanded by Sommer. They were to establish anti-aircraft cover, operate fog projectors, and ensure that the ship was protected by nets to ward off torpedoes and submarines. Still, some 1,700 men remained on boardgun crews, electricians, sailors, and officersto perform duties whose significance had paled. When Germany still had some sort of chance to win the war, which had begun in Poland in 1939, the struggle in the Arctic Ocean had been part of the conflict, in which the Tirpitz significantly influenced the decisions taken on both the German and the Allied sides. Now she had been reduced to a static role in a remote area of little significance. Soviet forces were already on the German eastern borders, as were Allied troops in the west. There was nothing the crew could do about it, stuck as they were in the crippled battleship far up in the north. Sommer shivered. In the battleship it was at least warmer. He really yearned for the warmth on board.