World Battlefronts: End of the Chase

The last of Germany’s great battleships, the 42,000-ton Tirpitz, lived a desperate, hunted life almost from her completion in 1941. Much of the time she hid in harbors licking the wounds from persistent British air attacks. This week off Tromso harbor in northern Norway her barren career ended. Said the British Air Ministry: “Twentynine Lancasters of the R.A.F. Bomber Command . . . attacked the German battleship Tirpitz with 12,0001b. bombs. There were several direct hits and within a few minutes the ship capsized and sank. One of our aircraft is missing.”