The Saber and Scroll Journal Volume 5, Issue 4, Fall 2016 | Page 14

reluctantly aborted the operation and returned to Norway. During her return
voyage, Tirpitz was given her baptism of fire (not the one for which her crew had
hoped) when twelve Albacore torpedo bombers from Tovey’s force pounced.
These were the successors of the old Swordfish biplanes that had attacked her
sister the year before. The Albacores failed to score any hits on the wildly
maneuvering battleship, and lost two aircraft in the process. Temporarily putting
into Bogen Bay near the iron ore port of Narvik on 9 March, on 12 March Tirpitz
left Bogen, returning to her base in Fættenfjord the next day. Ciliax could not
have known it at the time, but his flagship had come within 54 nautical miles of
PQ-12 and as little as 11 nautical miles of QP-8. Thankfully for the Allies,
darkness and appalling weather saved the convoys from detection and probable
annihilation. 20
Tirpitz remained in Fættenfjord until her next sortie against the Soviet
convoys in July. As the darkness of the Polar winter gave way to the continuous
daylight of summer, PQ-17 began assembling in Hvalfjord, Iceland. The Home
Fleet under Admiral Tovey would again provide distant cover, in the shape of
Duke of York and Victorious, joined this time by the American battleship
Washington, two cruisers, and 14 destroyers. The timing of the convoy was
critical; on the Eastern Front, the Wehrmacht had begun its Fall Blau offensive
and had pushed deep into southern Russia, driving the Red Army before it toward
the city of Stalingrad on the river Volga. The Soviets were desperate for any and
all aid the Lend-Lease program could provide. As for the British, they were about
to have the latent power of Tirpitz as a fleet-in-being hammered home in the most
ruthless fashion. 21
The German operation against PQ-17 was codenamed Rösselsprung, and
involved a noticeably larger contingent than that which had tried to intercept PQ-
12 in March. It was in fact one of the largest sorties of German warships
undertaken during the war. Tirpitz was the centerpiece of the German raiding
force, and her group included the heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper, the destroyers
Karl Galster, Theodor Riedel, Friedrich Ihn, and Hans Lody, and two torpedo
boats. A second force composed of the pocket-battleships Lützow and Admiral
Scheer, plus another six destroyers supported Tirpitz’s group. Tirpitz’s group
would sortie from Trondheim while Lützow’s group would sail from Narvik. The
plan was to rendezvous in Altafjord in northern Norway, then strike out together
against the convoy. Admiral Otto Schniewind, Admiral Ciliax’s replacement,
exercised direct overall command of the operation from the Kriegsmarine
flagship, while Vice-Admiral Oskar Kummetz commanded the pocket-battleship
group. The surface fleet’s operational area would be east of Bear Island in the
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