Nickodell
Donation Time
Group Captain (US Equiv. Full Colonel) Willie "Tirpitz" Tait just died at age 90. Tait, then a 26-year-old Wing Commander (Lt. Col.) already sporting two DSOs and a DFC, took over 617 Squadron ("The Dam Busters") from Leonard Cheshire just as they were being equipped with the 12,000 Tallboy "earthquake" bomb. The battleship Tirpitz, sister ship of the Bismark, had been lying in Norwegian fjords, where it posed a deadly menace to the convoys carrying munitions to the USSR. Had it got among one of these, their light escort could have done little to stop it destroying most of the ships.
Problem was that the fjords were just out of range of the RAF. There was also a strong Luftwaffe fighter force nearby, and probing attacks by carrier planes were hampered by smoke generators that the Germans installed in the hills surrounding the ship. By flying first from the extreme northeast of Scotland to Yagodnik, near Murmansk, Russia, Tait was able to lead a raid on the battleship, but the smoke pots quickly obliterated the target. Several Lancasters were lost, but Daniels, Tait's bomb-aimer (and possibly the most eagle-eyed one of the war), dropped on dead reackoning and hit the ship near the bow and the Germans were forced to move it south to Tromso fjord for repairs. This put it within range of RAF Lossiemouth, Scotland, but only after the mid-upper gun turrets were removed to save weight.
On November 12, 1944, Tait led 37 Lancasters of 9 and 617 Squadrons. Amazingly for Norway in November, the weather was clear, the Luftwaffe fighters were mistakenly sent off in the wrong direction (to the relief of the rear gunners, who would have had to do all the defence by themselves) and the Germans had not yet brought down the smoke generators.
Tait attacked first, and his Tallboy hit the ship. 18 more were dropped, scoring another direct hit and several near misses. There was a violent explosion, and the huge ship capsized in minutes, earning Tait his nickname. He ended the war with four DSOs (a record) and two DFCs. During the bombardier part of my training we studied films, at that time secret, taken by a camera plane that accompanied the raid, showing the bombs coming off and spearing down on the Tirpitz like great silver fish. If this doesn't impress, consider that the bombs were dropped at 200 mph, from 15,000 feet and several miles back from the target, which at that range looked about the size of a bug.
Salvage crews were still cutting the wreck up 20 years later.
I mentioned earlier that I was briefly stationed at RAF Coningsby, one of 617 Squadrons bases, and visited the abandoned RAF Woodhall Spa, which was their base under Tait's command (and the station Guy Gibson took off from on his last mission).
Post script: 617 Squadron also sank the battleship Lutzow, using Tallboys, in Schweinemunde harbor on April 16, 1945.
Problem was that the fjords were just out of range of the RAF. There was also a strong Luftwaffe fighter force nearby, and probing attacks by carrier planes were hampered by smoke generators that the Germans installed in the hills surrounding the ship. By flying first from the extreme northeast of Scotland to Yagodnik, near Murmansk, Russia, Tait was able to lead a raid on the battleship, but the smoke pots quickly obliterated the target. Several Lancasters were lost, but Daniels, Tait's bomb-aimer (and possibly the most eagle-eyed one of the war), dropped on dead reackoning and hit the ship near the bow and the Germans were forced to move it south to Tromso fjord for repairs. This put it within range of RAF Lossiemouth, Scotland, but only after the mid-upper gun turrets were removed to save weight.
On November 12, 1944, Tait led 37 Lancasters of 9 and 617 Squadrons. Amazingly for Norway in November, the weather was clear, the Luftwaffe fighters were mistakenly sent off in the wrong direction (to the relief of the rear gunners, who would have had to do all the defence by themselves) and the Germans had not yet brought down the smoke generators.
Tait attacked first, and his Tallboy hit the ship. 18 more were dropped, scoring another direct hit and several near misses. There was a violent explosion, and the huge ship capsized in minutes, earning Tait his nickname. He ended the war with four DSOs (a record) and two DFCs. During the bombardier part of my training we studied films, at that time secret, taken by a camera plane that accompanied the raid, showing the bombs coming off and spearing down on the Tirpitz like great silver fish. If this doesn't impress, consider that the bombs were dropped at 200 mph, from 15,000 feet and several miles back from the target, which at that range looked about the size of a bug.
Salvage crews were still cutting the wreck up 20 years later.
I mentioned earlier that I was briefly stationed at RAF Coningsby, one of 617 Squadrons bases, and visited the abandoned RAF Woodhall Spa, which was their base under Tait's command (and the station Guy Gibson took off from on his last mission).
Post script: 617 Squadron also sank the battleship Lutzow, using Tallboys, in Schweinemunde harbor on April 16, 1945.
