The Hunt for Hitler's Warship

by Patrick Bishop

Winston Churchill called it "the Beast." It was said to be unsinkable. More than thirty military operations failed to destroy it. Eliminating the Tirpitz, Hitler's mightiest warship, a 52,000-ton behemoth, became an Allied obsession.

In The Hunt for Hitler's Warship, Patrick Bishop tells the epic story of the men who would not rest until the Tirpitz lay at the bottom of the sea. In November of 1944, with the threat to Russian supply lines increasing and Allied forces needing reinforcements in the Pacific, a raid as audacious as any Royal Air Force operation of the war was launched, under the command of one of Britain's greatest but least-known war heroes, Wing Commander Willie Tait.

Patrick Bishop draws on decades of experience as a foreign war correspondent to paint a vivid picture of this historic clash of the Royal Air Force's Davids versus Hitler's Goliath of naval engineering. Readers will not be able to put down this account of one of World War II's most dramatic showdowns.

Genres: World War II, Nonfiction, History

416 pages, Paperback

Published May 4, 2015

About the author

Patrick Bishop was born in London in 1952 and went to Wimbledon College and Corpus Christi College, Oxford. Before joining the Telegraph he worked on the Evening Standard, the Observer and the Sunday Times and in television as a reporter on Channel Four News. He is the author with John Witherow of a history of the Falkands War based on their own experiences and with Eamon Mallie of The Provisional IRA which was praised as the first authoritative account of the modern IRA. He also wrote a memoir the first Gulf War, Famous Victory and a history of the Irish diaspora The Irish Empire, based on the TV series which he devised.

Reviews

[Larry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bishop's book is about the various attempts made against the Tirpitz, Hitler's surviving battleship, by the British Navy, the Fleet Air Arm, and the RAF. The book also serves as a history of the naval war between the British and the Germans (save for most of the war in the western approaches between u-boats and convoys, with the Tirpitz always present as a threat to the convoy runs to Russia. The various British efforts—bombing missions, naval encounters at sea, midget submarine and "chariot" attacks, and espionage—required high levels of heroism and ingenuity. Bishop's book doesn't reveal new material, being drawn from memoirs, secondary sources, and the official histories, but it is smoothly written and consistently exciting. If my rating bumps up the book's value by a half-star or so, it's in a good cause: remembering what brave men attempted.

[Michael Totten · Rating 4 out of 5]

Let's face it: this story about the hunt for the Tirpitz, is not the most significant story about WWII.
It was important to the Brits, but relatively insignificant to us “Yanks”, during that war.
Nonetheless, viewing this story from within the British world, it is an interesting
story, and the action is well-told by this Brit historian, who frankly admits that most of this effort
was a “folly”, by Churchill, or a waste of effort. He did point out, honestly, how hard it was for
the older Brit ships and aircraft to sink these very few, but very modern German
battleships, during WWII. And some of what he was talking about, relative to this particular
effort, tied into other more significant efforts during that war, by both the Brits and us “Yanks”.
So, overall it was interesting, looking at things from the Brit point of view. But, this author, like
so many other historians in every Western country nowadays, WASTED too much text describing
the personal backgrounds of individual characters in this story, which is almost completely
unimportant and irrelevant to the action of the story itself. Why can't these historians put all of that
PERSONAL stuff into an appendix somewhere, huh? Who cares about what school they graduated
from or what previous military service they had, anyway?!? The STORY of the action and the
combat effort is what matters! The rest of it is insignificant TRIVIA, to most readers!!! Every
historian nowadays seems to want to inundate us readers with the same useless information
(yuk!) No wonder history is boring to most people (although not to me!) And so what if they have
pregnant wives waiting for them at home? Who cares?!? I'm didn't read this
book thinking that it was a romance novel--it is a naval combat history book instead!!! I'm trying to find out what happened in this effort to sink and/or
disable this particular powerful battleship, and also perhaps get more clues as to why the Brits have been in a steady decline from the
first-rate power that they were in 1763 to the second-rate power that they are now, in 2026.
Listen, there was nothing second-rate about
Churchill's early recognition of the fascist menace to Western civilization, or the Brit determination as a whole to stand alone against the Third Reich and keep fighting against it in the summer of 1940–it was very heroic. But a year later Germany was winning in the
Mediterranean, and soon may have overrun the Middle East and gotten all of its oil resources, if not for Hitler's fatal mistake to invade the Soviet Union in June, 1941. And, after the Japs hit us at Pearl Harbor, in
December, 1941, and then Hitler subsequently decided to declare war against us, Germany found
out quickly what it was like to take on a first-rate power. Yeah, our military had declined significantly in the 1930s (courtesy of failed Democratic Party policies), but when FDR brought the Republicans that mattered into his administration (out of desperation) in 1940, the situation
changed quickly, and so by 1945 we were towering over our fascist enemies, militarily, and crushed
them for good. And in the years that followed we did well against our communist enemies, too, for a while–until the Democrats came to power again, in early 1961, after the close Nov. 1960 election, when a flood of late votes came in from the Democratic Party stronghold of Chicago, that were 100% for the Democratic candidate (sound familiar? Just like what happened in 2020, by the way!) I wonder why Democratic Party leaders are so incompetent, with our military?
Anyway, I give this book 4 stars, despite the overall insignificance of this story to the war, and the irrelevance of including so many personal backgrounds of characters in the story, because there were some interesting things mentioned in this book, nonetheless. But, to books like: Stalin's Folly, Stalin's War, Shattered Sword, and Freedom's Forge, I will always give 5
stars. Even the book, The Traitor of Arnhem, is worth 5 stars, despite mostly being about a huge Brit
govt error, at that time. What I recommend this author does in the future, is to write a historical book about
the devastating cost to humanity, of communism. That would be much more significant, timely, relevant and useful book to read today–wouldn't you agree?

[Shellie (Layers of Thought) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Original review posted at Layers of Thought.

John’s quick take: A fascinating book for anyone interested in World War II or military history; but also a terrific read for anyone who likes a good adventure story. This history book is full of both intriguing historical details and breathtakingly dangerous human exploits.

John’s description: As Hitler’s Germany prepared for war, it was determined to match the might of the British Navy. One result of this was the building of a huge battleship that was bigger, faster, better armed and more advanced than anything the world had seen. The Tirpitz, named after Grand Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz who was the architect of the German Imperial Navy, was supposedly unsinkable.

As the war developed, the main role of the ship was to cause havoc with the Atlantic convoys that were both the lifeline of besieged Britain and an important source of allied arms being supplied to Russia. The Germans based Tirpitz on the Norwegian coast, so it could also serve as a deterrent to a possible allied invasion of that country. Hitler had something close to paranoia about the threat of the allies rescuing Norway from its German occupiers.

As it turned out, by far the biggest impact that the Tirpitz had on the war was the threat of what it might do, rather than anything it actually did do. The allied forces were terrified of the ship’s capabilities and went to enormous lengths to protect their convoys and to avoid a direct confrontation, thereby tying up enormous amounts of military assets; meanwhile the Germans, and Hitler in particular, were terrified of losing the ship and were amazingly cautious about using it in anger, despite its reputed invincibility. But Hitler was not the only wartime leader who played a major personal role in the Tirpitz story; Churchill was almost obsessed with the Tirpitz, and relentlessly pushed his forces to attack the ship, even after it should have become obvious that its threat was overstated.

The result was that over a three-year period the British launched no less than 36 operations designed specifically to sink the ship. As Tirpitz was moored in well-protected Norwegian fjords, beyond the range of traditional British-based bombers, many of the British operations were innovative or desperately risky, bordering on suicidal. Among other things the British tried to use human torpedoes, midget submarines, aircraft carrier-based dive bombers, and specially designed mines. Some of the operations used special services groups, supported by undercover agents in Norway, and much of the intelligence about the ship’s movements and plans was the result of the British decrypting top-secret German Enigma communications.

The operation involving newly designed midget submarines was particularly unusual and daring. After perilous training and a fraught journey across the North Sea, just three of the ten craft made it beyond the ship’s defenses, one of which was then sunk by gunfire and depth charges. But two of the tiny submarines did manage to lay mines which did quite a bit of damage to Tirpitz, and put it out of action for almost six months. However, the ship was repaired and once again became a thorn in the sides of the British.

Eventually the job of sinking Tirpitz was handed over to the Royal Air Force, which now had access to Lancaster bombers which had just about enough range to reach the Tirpitz. The attacks by the bombers stretched the limits of both human endurance and available technology, and the losses were high. But using highly innovative and terrifying new “earthquake bombs”, the RAF finally scored two direct hits on the ship causing it to capsize within minutes; of the 1,700 sailors on board at the time of the bombing, it is estimated that almost 1,000 died as a result of the attack.

John’s thoughts: I found this a tremendously interesting read. It could have been just a dry, historical account of events, but throughout the book, Bishop uses personal diaries, memoirs and interviews with families of survivors to bring the history to life. In large parts the story is told through the eyes of people who were involved.

And what a story this is. If a Hollywood movie had used a plot like this, many would accuse it of being far-fetched and unbelievable. In here we have arms races, technology being pushed to the absolute limits, powerful nations battling for survival, spies, decrypted secret messages, audacious plans and quite stunning acts of bravery in the face of overwhelming odds. It is the latter which I found most amazing. Throughout the book there are seemingly normal people that are willing to volunteer for missions or to do things which are absurdly dangerous. Heroes indeed.

Apart from all of that, I also found it an educational book. I’m old enough that World War II was very real to my parents and grandparents, and I’ve always been fascinated by the period. I learnt a lot from this read and it wasn’t just about the facts and the stories immediately surrounding the Tirpitz. It was also an education to find out more about the people – from how the personalities of Hitler and Churchill had a direct impact on events, to the stories of the daring pilots and sailors who undertook the raids, to the impact of German occupation on Norwegians, to the lives of the sailors on board the Tirpitz. Something else gave me great pause for thought. The Tirpitz never did attack allied ships and essentially the only time it caused any damage was when it was defending itself against attack; yet it had a major influence on events during the war. The threat of a weapon turned out to be much more damaging than the weapon itself. Intriguing, and you can’t help but draw some parallels with the cold war that followed World War II.

I’d rate this book four stars and thoroughly recommend it to anyone interested in World War II or military history; but also to anyone who enjoys reading about real-life adventure.

[Jon Bradley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this as an ebook checked out from the library. I was attracted to the book because I had a vague understanding of the role that the battleship Tirpitz played (or didn't play) in WW2. Also, I visited the Imperial War Museum in London in 2022 and viewed the remains of an X-craft mini-submarine they had on display, and somehow it had stuck in my memory that this sub had played a role in the Tirpitz story. The Tirpitz was the less-famous sister ship of the battleship Bismarck, which was sunk by the Royal Navy in May of 1941. Following the loss of the Bismarck, the German navy moved the Tirpitz north to a fjord in Norway in early 1942, where it was intended to form the nucleus of a battle group that would menace Allied shipping convoys being sent through the Arctic Ocean to bring military supplies to Russia. But the German high command was hesitant to risk their sole remaining battleship and the Tirpitz spent most of its time docked in the fjord. But just by existing there, it tied up British warships that had to stay in the area to counter its potential threat. Churchill was obsessed with sinking the Tirpitz and continually prodded his various military commanders to do something about it. Between early 1942 and late 1944, the British made numerous attempts to sink the Tirpitz, employing carrier-based torpedo planes and bombers, land-based heavy bombers, manned torpedoes, and mini-submarines (the aforementioned X-craft). The X-craft badly damaged the ship in a daring raid, and the various air attacks also did some damage. Finally in late 1944, when the defeat of Germany was less than 6 months away and the war situation had rendered the Tirpitz useless as an offensive weapon, RAF bombers succeeded in sending her to the bottom. This book is very detailed and quite interesting. The story of each raid is given, and the various personnel involved are discussed in detail. I could have used a little less biographical info on some of the personnel, but that is a quibble. Despite the book's length and the amount of ground covered, the story moves along briskly. If you are interested in WW2 history, this book would be a good choice. Four out of five stars.

[ManOfLaBook.com · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Hunt for Hitler’s War­ship by Patrick Bishop is a non-fiction book about the attempts of the allies to sink the Ger­man bat­tle­ship Tir­pitz dur­ing World War II. This is a great book for World War II buffs, naval his­to­ri­ans or those inter­ested in naval tech­ni­cal developments.

Patrick Bishop wrote an inter­est­ing book about the allies’ obses­sion with sink­ing the Tir­pitz even though she was mostly inac­tive dur­ing the war. It seemed to me the Tirpitz’s great­est con­tri­bu­tion dur­ing the war was to divert huge amounts of allied resources.

Mr. Bishop’s book is also a fas­ci­nat­ing look at the naval his­tory of the North Sea dur­ing World War II. This is a dense and detailed book on a sub­ject I knew very lit­tle about and found the dynam­ics and war pol­i­tics within the British Navy fascinating.

The author did a great job explain­ing how the Nimitz fright­ened the allies with her size and fire­power, but was also a lia­bil­ity for the Ger­mans with the resources she demanded to oper­ate. A fas­ci­nat­ing sec­tion of the book dis­cusses the new weapons and train­ing (such as human tor­pe­does and small sub­marines) which the allies invented. Men have strug­gled and even died dur­ing those mis­sions and some­times didn’t even know if they succeeded.

I did feel the book could have used a bit of spac­ing between para­graphs to cre­ate a phys­i­cal sep­a­ra­tion of sec­tions. For exam­ple, sev­eral pages could talk about Churchill or the allies, while the next para­graph talks about the cap­tain of the Tir­pitz with­out the usual 1” space. It’s a small com­plaint but I had to go and re-read sev­eral para­graphs to make sure I didn’t miss anything.

The book does an excel­lent job cap­tur­ing the mood and his­tory of the time, com­plete with maps show­ing move­ments of troops and ships. Churchill’s con­sum­ing infat­u­a­tion of the Tir­pitz is what put the ship in the his­tory books; oth­er­wise she might have been a foot­note as she spent most of the war anchored.

Dis­claimer: I got this book for free

For more reviews and bookish posts please visit http://www.ManOfLaBook.com

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is as much about the theater of war in the north Atlantic and Arctic as it is about the German warship, Tirpitz, especially considering how very little the vessel contributed to the war. But it was still a tremendous threat to the Allies, especially to the convoys of equipment travelling the northernmost waters of the Arctic to supply the Russians. The naval activity surrounding the northern nations is an aspect of WWII that is often overlooked, and here the significance of the area is presented in great detail. Though it is occasionally bogged down with the specifics of naval warfare and the countless names of airmen and sailors involved in these missions, this book is incredibly informative.

Though the Tirpitz spent most of the war inactive, docked in a Norwegian fjord, it was a symbol of German strength. The book documents the numerous attempts to destroy it and the extreme tactics the British used. The Allies stopped at nothing to prevent Tirpitz from becoming an active participant in Atlantic activity, interfering with the Normandy landing, or threatening Russian-bound convoys. What amazed me was how many millions of tons of munitions and supplies ended up at the bottom of the sea. This ship that was an obsession of Churchill's and an example of German might may have sat dormant, but its capabilities as the most dangerous vessel in the water was undeniable.

I received a complimentary copy of this book via TLC Book Tours.

[Joel Myers · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book detailing a lesser known chapter of history without claiming to be more than it is. Frankly, both sides fought incredibly hard over the TIRPITZ, but, as Bishop writes, the outcome was rather inconsequential. In no way does that detract from this book. A sharply written narrative about a huge but rarely discussed conflict spanning the entire war. Made me think a lot more about the vastness of war strategy, the impossibility of knowing outcomes, the need to assume the worst and fight for the best, and the immense courage of the men who fought and died in the North Atlantic.

[Steve Herreid · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the story of the battleship Tirpitz, mightiest vessel in the German Navy during World War 2, and of the many and varied attempts by the Allies to sink her in the fjords of Norway. I found the book to be highly informative but fast paced and easy to read. The maps on the inside covers were particularly helpful. I liked this book!

[Ed · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very readable account of the amazing ingenuity and courage (over the top, in some cases) of the British airmen and sailors who were determined to destroy the Tirpitz.

[Bennett · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great insight into the British during WW2. I have always just read American based history of the era. This was a fascinating eye-opener.

[Kevin Haile · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting read even if you already know the subject.