Since it apparently isn’t obvious to some people: When I talk ineffectual raids, I’m talking the numerous aircraft carrier raids (and odd heavy bomber raid) that did no damage. Or light damage. Only a couple attacks, X-Craft included, did actual lasting damage.
@@whiteheatherclub Normally Tirpitz was moored in areas that could be quickly covered in smoke screens and difficult to reach by air attack. She was in THIS location to make it easier to repair the damage caused by the X-Craft raids. When the British reconned this location they identified an opportunity to reach her with Lancaster heavy bombers armed with 12,000 lb Tallboy bombs. The smoke screen wasn't as effective in this area nor was the shoreside anti-air. IIRC Tirpitz suffered 3 direct hits with at least one of those penetrating the ship coming out through her bottom and detonating under her. One detonated in or alongside her engineering spaces with others detonating very close to her side or the shore nearby.
A lot of pipes from Tirpitz were reused as water suply pipes in Tromsø, a town close to where the ship was sunk. Most of those has been replaced by now, but there are still a few still in use. Source: I am a civil engieneer who work in water mamagement in Norway
So you actually have far newer pipes in Tromso than many US East Coast cities. I plumber I spoke with about 5 years ago at work had been doing seasonal work over in the USA in cities that still had timber barrel type and lead pipes being used for drinking water supply. The various pipes were 150 to 200 years in service. 😮 Working at a school that is now 165 years old in Melbourne Australia, I was still a little bit shocked.
what i know about the crew after the sinking is that every crew member found inside the wreck, was handled with dignity as any human would be. The bodies was placed into nicely made coffins and send home to Germany to there families as is the right thing to do . Remember they are just boys , following orders given by there leaders in a time of war. My grandfather was a scrapper on the Tirpitz he did operate the big welders they used to Cut the thick panzer plates into pieces. He said they were told not to talk or share what they did see and experienced on board. He brought home some kitchen equipment and a weapon locking case. most things has been given to the local Tirpitz museum. but i still have a few small items gifted to me by my grandfather that i will pass own to my own children one day. Thou my grandfather open up and told everything in his last years alive and told everything to a historian. and just a year after that he got a stroke in his head and he could not even remember his families beside my grandmother. But he remember everything from back then, he even ask for his coworkers from back then. it was like his mind was reset back to the end of ww2. He passed away about 2 years after this stroke. but we don't know who is left alive from this scrapping crew if any, but we like to believe he was among the last Rest in peace too all the crew members of Tirpitz that passed away onboard the ship. The ship will always be part of my families history
I would disagree that she was among the most useless of all battleships. Just the threat of her reaching the open sea tied up scores of Allied ships and aircraft that could've been used in other theaters instead. She spent her career as a massive chess piece and proved quite good at it, even if that wasn't her designed role.
The problem is that was entirely due to the Allies failing to realize she wasn’t a threat and was already contained. They could have just ignored her and done themselves a favor.
After HMS Campbeltown, the threat of Tirpitz going rogue on allied ships was basically non-existent. All they had to do was do some relatively serious damage to him and he'd be out of action till the end of the war.
@@pukovnikklefeld That threat was nonexistent even BEFORE Operation Chariot, which was pointless in hindsight. The Germans didn’t even have enough fuel to make Tirpitz a credible threat.
Some debris were left behind near Håkøya. The sea plane deck can still be seen above water at low tide. The keel remains on the shallow sea bed and still attracts divers. Hikers still find grenade fragments on the hills and mountains in the background on these images. That's where many of the grenades fired from the battleship against attacking planes landed. Until the shipyard moved to the north tip of Tromsø island a few years ago, some armour plates from Tirpitz' hull were stored there. You could see why bombs couldn't penetrate the armour. It was truly massive. Thanks for compiling and sharing!
One of Tirpitz small boats to cary the officers to and from shores survived. I saw it in a boatyard in Oslo in 1994. Owner of the boatyard told me it was from Tirpitz, People from germany had been there and wanted to buy and restore it but it was to far gone by then. It was used a few years after that but was in the end towed out and sunked. I compared it with photos of tirpitz and it was identical to one of the boats besides the funnel of tirpitz.
Thanks for such a great collection of pictures. I was 8 years old when "Sink the Bismark" was new in theaters and I still research much of WWII history. My father rose to the rank of Lt. Colonel in the Army during WWII; but he was in the Pacific theater. I have previously searched for pictures of the Tirpitz; but this was the largest collection of the deconstruction photos I have ever seen.
Those circular tubes are 38cm rear cartridges for main guns, you can see powder magazine shelving at top of picture. The circular ( large) section is secondary battery inner barbette.
The salvage story of this ship always manages to skip over the interesting questions; What about the ammunition? The large shells removed or still there? The Crew? Remains recovered and interned? Where were they buried? How many? Is the remaining metal valuable and worth another salvage effort? (Metal under water during Nuclear weapons testing has value?). Were all the big guns removed? Any environmental issues with ship’s bunker oil? Apparently these are sensitive topics and Information is hard to find. * Thanks for a super video.
Some amateur journalist wrote a piece on Tirpitz some 20 years ago where he stated that the hull was raised and was taken back to Blohm&Voss ship yard to be scrapped - but as you see here the hull was torn apart where it capsized in Norway and yes i have been looking for years for these pictures.
Tirpirz’s hull that is towable would have to be uprighted, and towed south and into the Baltic sea. These photos showed the hull was no longer seaworthy.
Several people have asked for information about the corpses inside the ship. That has been something I have also wondered about over many years. But the other question is why they were allowed to cut away at what, in effect, is a war grave. Who did Tirpitz belong to at the time it was scrapped? A German government did not exist in 1948, so who gave permission for the ship to be salvaged? And why should it make a difference whether a ship is completely below water or partly above? HMS Royal Oak is treated as a war grave and, as such, is protected. Why not the Tirpitz?
The simplest answer is this: It’s 1948, Norway. You and your country just came out of a multi year occupation. And even if one of the relatively lighter handed ones, it’s still the Nazis. You have a big hunk of valuable steel, in the form of one of The Occupier’s battleships, rusting away. Did they really care it was full of corpses? Most definitely not. Royal Oak is a bit of a different case… But, then again, Mutsu was full of bodies and it didn’t stop the Japanese from scrapping her. Arizona, Royal Oak, they’re a bit more of an exception than a rule in a lot of ways. This isn’t to say I agree with it, but it is a fact of life with ships sunk in shallow anchorages like that. It’s easier to cordon off a wreck in deeper water, like Jutland, decades after the event. Ditto the Java Sea wrecks, although their designation as war graves did little good.
Here the former captain of a U-boat who survived her sinking actually participated in the postwar salvage of his old boat, where most of his crew died. Different and desperate times. Most of Europe was financially broke from the war, and salvage was income. th-cam.com/video/EoJto7mKmXk/w-d-xo.htmlsi=0qnJPHGg4kY9iHP2
I dont think the international classification of a war grave existed in 1948. Even in this day and age some people and their government do not respect it, i.e. Chinese salvage companies loot WW2 wrecks and the Chinese government only shrugs. And I'm sure they are not the only ones. The logic behind it is simple: It's not remains from our people and these ships sometimes sank halfway around the globe from home - so what?
The remains of invading murderous brutes deserved absolutely no respect from what had been a perfectly decent innocent and neutral country before the nazi attack. Presumably any offensive semi-composted waste would have been dumped in deep water?
The biggest navy operation from the germans was the reparing of Tirpitz up in norway - after the x-crafts attack the hull of the ship had gone through a state of whipping which means that the hull had swayed violently making the auxelery engine and propelshaft out of alignment making it not fit to sail , the ship-yard workers succeded in straiting the shafts again making the Tirpitz able to sail again at a lesser topspeed thought but a partly succes .
Whipping or do you mean that the explosions put a wind in the machinery alignment, somewhat akin to a board of timber that has been carelessly stored and developed a wind or twist to it?
Thanks for a very interesting video. I would have thought that the ship's armour plates would have been the first things to be recovered seeing as how much good steel was used to fabricate them.
If you ever visit Kristiansund, Norway, visit Mellemværftet museum, a historic shipyard. They cut up a number of plates from the Tirpitz there, and one plate is still there to view along the back wall in the main room next to the smithy. Apparently many of the plates were used for road repair.
Thank you so much for doing such a fascinating video! I never realized the effort to scrap her wreck was a multinational one, and I’ve actually never seen any of the pictures of her scrapping process before, so all of those photos were totally new to me. I was honestly about to mention the knives made from her hull, but you beat me to it, and as a collector of historical artifacts, I completely agree with the sentiments on finding a ‘legit’ Tirpitz hill knife. Thank you again so much for doing this video!! Made my morning to watch this, and I always enjoy your content!! Last note: I don’t know if you already have made a vid about this, but I’m curious if there has been any efforts to locate the wreck of Sharnhorst. I think the royal navy had a rough note of where she sank, but I honestly am I unsure. You are much more capable of researching this topic than I am, and I would hope you end up finding out something as interesting as you did for Tirpitz. Thank you again so much for an awesome video, sorry to make this comment so long, and I hope you have a wonderful rest of your weekend!!
Scharnhorst (both of them, they found the WW1 armored cruiser a couple years back) has been located. There’s apparently some really, really rough footage out there. I haven’t seen it, though. The armored cruiser has some nice pics, at least.
Just outside my home, vis-a-vis the Railway station here in Drammen, Norway, are there several Steel Armour plate from Tirpitz!😳 Each 5 cm. thick - 5 meters long and 2.5 meters wide, used by 'VY', Norway's state railways to cover excavation work at the railway station🚂 This excavation work has been going on for 2 years and they will not be finished until 2025- - Not a sign of rust on the steel!!! Cars with studded tires drive over in winter. The roads are salted! What does it say about the steel quality? The steel was produced for salt water!
14:12 That chunk pulled off...it's the bow! It's inverted but you can see the anchor cluses and the way it tapers to a point along the bottom! 15:00, don't think it's plate, its just outer shell attached to a hull frame, you can just see that the frame is in the shape of an I beam.
im planning to visit the site where she was scrapped since i live in norway. And i hope to maybe get a piece of her home with me. I know that it’s a war grave and shouldn’t be touched. So I’ll ask if I can pick one piece from her wreck and take home with me and have beside my Tirpitz model
Many people here asked about the fate of the crew. From Wikipedia: 916 of the crew on "Tirpitz" died, 807 were rescued ashore. Of those who survived, 87 were saved by the rescue crews cutting in through the ship's side.
That large curved object starting at 8:40 couldn't be a barbette since we're looking from the bottom upward toward the main deck. A barbette from this angle would look like a circular object. It seems it could be a main condenser given its size and position in the ship. Or, perhaps the bottom of a turbine casing or main reduction gear.
7:00 & 14:00 - looking forward from midships. 9:00 - you are correct - the center 15cm turret Barbette and angled Armoured Deck, with the remaining armour plate at 10:00. 15:00 - that armour plate is indeed 320mm thick with 50mm wooden backing bolted to hull frame. Some cool photos to see. Thanks for posting them. Respect
Tirpirz was a threat to convoys just being in position too. Without even putting out to sea. The German navy hadn’t even enough fuel oil for Tirpitz to operate
@@DieWitness …. Yes. However the Kriegsmarine had little fuel oil in Norway to take a battleship to sea. Fuel oil for Tripitz was a distant priority in Berlin. PQ17 was destroyed by a bad Royal Navy decision to abandon it.
I'm surprised there is so much armor playe left lying around. As "Pre-Atomic" steel, it is required for sensitive radiation detectors and other scientific instruments. "They" say that background radiation levels have fallen since atmospheric testing stopped in 1963, but pre-war steel is still needed for high end equipment.
This makes me wonder if there's warehouses full of Scapa steel out there, being that commodity, and there having been a somewhat generous source of it.
I am pretty sure the single gun being lifted out of the water near the end of the video was one of her 105 mm heavy anti aircraft guns. They were paired in open gun mounts, not in turrets.
Times 14:06 and 15:55 look like the same forecastle lift. The picture showing the starboard propeller also has torpedo nets in the water so it must have been taken in war time. The starboard side remained above water and the No. 1 generator room contained four 500 kwatt diesel generators which could have been useful once decontaminated and overhauled. There was another starboard side only 460 kwatt diesel generator room. The boiler steam powered turbo generators from stbd generator room 3 might have been unsuitable for peacetime use. Gaining controlled access to the unexploded A, B and D turret magazines would have been important for safety. Some of the ‘tubes’ might have been removed multi-part brass cased 380mm propellant charges? I know that some salvaged rusty Tirpitz firearms were kept as souvenirs in Norway.
i just been watching some videos regarding smelting of Silver, completely unrelated, but it does really make you think of the human resource in getting to this stage - ore pulled from the ground, iron smelted, and steel produced, a ship built and sunk, and then all the resources again to strip her down and melt down to be reused - it baggers belief in so many ways, quite extraordinary - i wonder how much gas used used cutting her up and the costs involved - i wonder how much of her and where she is, how many cars she might have made, what percentage is still in use, and i don't mean the raw plates as suggested to cover holes in roads etc as described, fascinating stuff
Since there were germans involved and Norwegians generally being civilized people I suppose they were buried on land next to the wreck site. I know there's a german war cemetary there
A grandson of one of the scrappers did mention that his grandfather said that the bodies were removed as the ship was scrapped put in coffins and sent back to Germany to their families. 🙏
Some measurements. Length of 251 metres (823 ft),Tirpitz weighed over 50,000 tons when fully loaded. The steel in the hull was 30 cm (12”) thick. Tirpitz had eight 38 cm (15”) guns, some of the biggest naval guns ever built. The vessel had a crew of more than 2,600, including 100 officers. Between 950 and 1200 did die when capzied.
Another great vid as always! I swear even with the plans in front of me I wouldnt be able to figure out ass from head inside the Tirpitz while it was being scrapped
I’ve always wondered why the Germans did not wait a year so and use the Bismarck and Tirpitz together along with Scharnhorst and Gneisenau in a fleet operations mode like US Navy used with their battleships. Not doing so allowed the more potent Royal Navy to pick them off one by one. I can’t imagine what damage they could have done together.
Bismarck's sortie was actually a plan of the head of the German Navy. He had been given orders by Hitler to sink shipping (but having contradictory statements of basically wiping out all merchantmen, but take no risks or suffer any damage themselves). The German Army & Air Force were on a high since the Fall of France & the low countries (& had many prominent figures leading them), & no doubt the head of the German Navy wanted to show what 'his' force could do. Everyone was trying to get Hitlers attention & favours. Hitler wasn't too keen on the plan, but the head of the navy said it was too late to stop it. Hitler was probably also thinking about Yugoslavia & the soon to be invasion of Russia. One other thing was Hitler was determined to keep the Russian invasion secret, & keep up the pretense that the only war happening was in the West. A naval sortie would be a good distraction for political purposes. With hindsight, it does seem a lot better to conserve forces when your ships are all together (although in reality, you may not have enough fuel to do it), or use the Bismark & Tirpitz in the Baltic supporting the land forces, while still keeping the British navy in port in case they break out into the Atlantic.
Hitler wasn't exactly known for his patience, now was he! Plan Z for the German Navy was barely half way done when he miss-calculated over Poland and started WWII.
None of the German battleships were intended to fight against other battleships, they all had the mission to attack and sink convoys and so starve Britain. The Bismarck had instructions to avoid any battle with the Royal Navy.
The round thing that you are curious about, looks like a funnel that was snapped off at the waterline as it rolled over. Generally they are not built with heavy thick metal.
The shot of her secondary turret was cool, showing just how much bigger thise guns were than the secondary of other ships. Much bigger than the 5 inchers on us ships, though in reality, the dual purpose 5 inch did a lot more good for their ships.
I read somewhere, (can’t remember the actual article) that (allegedly) bones recovered were simply tossed into the water. Bits of uniform, buttons etc could thereafter, be found on the shore line. A local minister heard of it and intervened and made efforts to have remains buried with some respect. There was little sympathy for Germans in Norway following the war. The treatment of children of German soldiers born to Norwegian women was particularly cruel.
@@givenfirstnamefamilyfirstn3935 Cordite propellant is not harmless, this has been shown when cordite recovered from one of teh Battle of Jutland wrecks had exposed cordite bundles, some were brought to the surface and they still would ignite when a match was used to ignite some.
As I recall from my reading when much younger, some of Tirpitz's generators were cleaned up and reused in shore applications. The heavy plates that were cast aside during the scrapping operation and other pieces still on the bottom may be worth recovering today as they were made long before radioactive fallout could have contaminated the steel, the same reason that many of the ships sunk in Pacific battles have been illegally scrapped.
@@Mii_Oh_Nine Really? Preatomic age steel such as found in those Pacific wrecks and Tirpitz lacks the small amount of background radiation that post atomic test steel contains. That lack of trace radiation makes the older steel more valuable for use in CT scanners, Geiger counters and other precision instruments. It is STILL very much a thing.
@@robertf3479 many years ago that used to be the case, nowadays the radiation levels in the atmosphere has greatly decreased, not to mention those uses for low background steel are very niche
Yes, during my norway trip this year I visited the north cap , the guid explains in the smal village of Honnigsvaeg is a generator from the tirpitz is installed in a small wooden building near the harbour...Marc
I had an uncle who was stationed in Germany toward the end of Vietnam who decided he wanted either a fixed or folding by pocket knife made from the Tirpitz, he went into Norway and discovered the prices they were asking for those knives was greater than he felt it was worth and just before Russia invaded Ukraine One of my friends from Kyiv having heard the story of the pocket knives also investigated only to discover the price of those knives equalled a small Sedan from China!!! 🤠👍
I wonder how they salvaged the rest below the waterline. I mean it was fairly easy as long as you had the hull providing a natural Cofferdam so to speak, but as soon as they cut away too deeply this must have been exclusively diver's work.
Half of the hull bottom was exposed in the last photo. The superstructure was underwater while the hull side and hull bottom formed a V jutting out of the water. In an earlier photo, the stabilizer on the amidships was shown.
By the time they pulled Oklahoma up rite and cleaned her out, even the bones of her crew had dissolved into the nasty saltwater/chemical bath that had filled her for almost four years.
Those 'ineffectual' raids did enough damage to keep it unusable. The Grand Slam 10 ton bomb that hit Tirpitz ended up blowing one turret right off the ship, and a few of the massive ball bearings supporting it were found up to 3 miles away. The bombs were NOT meant to hit the ship but to explode deep down near the ship, they were 'earthquake' bombs. It didn't seem to matter much. I met Barnes Wallace at a lecture during my apprenticeship who was the inventor, he was a quiet gentle man. Definitely 'no wide open spaces surrounded by teeth, an English engineer of the old school.
There were over 40 attempts made to sink Tirpitz, and the vast majority was indeed ineffectual. Tirpitz didnt leave that Fjord due to any damage for the most part, but because of a fleet on 'Tirpitz watch' out on sea, making any attempt to break out a futile effort. On the other hand, the Germans also appreciated the fact that their last remaining battleship would tie up a number of allied capital ships just by sitting there instead.
@@Ganiscolit was a combination of having a single usable dry dock and every ship in the nearest vicinity being raised for tirpitz head. That and also fuel issues, something the axis seemed to always have issues with.
The Tallboy crater shown in the opening shot is still there and can be seen quite clearly on Google Earth, as well as some of the underwater craters from near misses that hit the water around Tirpitz.
I hope that those craters were checked properly that the Tallboys had gone off? You wouldn't want an unexploded Tallboy sitting in the fiord slowly rusting to it's dangerous demise?
I visited the site of the Tirpitz wreck in 1968. The hull, of course was completely gone, but much remained to remind you of what happened there. I remember an enormous crater and a very large turbine, the size of a sedan, sitting on the beach. There was also a lot of small debris littering the beach. I picked up a light fixture and a door handle as souvenirs , but my Norwegian mother disposed of them, as they reminded her of the sailors who died on the ship.
RIP to the brave crew of KMS Tirpitz. You are miles out when you called her useless. The fact that Tirpitz kept floating, presented a real, and severe threat to any convoy, this Tirpitz tied up a vast amount of the UK's resources, whether hunting her if she left her lair, or in trying to put her out of action, or simply keeping sufficient strength of force within range to scare Hitler into not risking her in combat. Remember, it took 74 ships to hunt down and sink Bismarck. Churchill was mindful of what Bismarck did to the Hood, and the damage to the PoW which it could have also sunk had Lutjens chosen to pursue. Most probably the two heavy cruisers in pursuit would have been lost as they rushed to help the PoW. If that had happened, the Bismarck could, conceivably, have escaped the net and made it to Brest for repairs. In the above scenario, one German BB would have knocked out two top line British BB's. The moral implications of this would have been huge. Britain could not afford to lose capital ships two at a time, given that Bismarck would have got away (first time) relatively unscathed, it would have been supposed by the Admiralty that a similar outcome was likely at each engagement, running battleships in two's, or three's was not a practical option as Britain had to defend her colonies, convoys, and was, at that point in the war, fighting the Nazis on her own. Of course, ALL the above is conjecture, but the Tirpitz threat was real, and Churchill knew it so, the game of cat and mouse was played until the RAF did what they do best in an precision attack the accuracy of the bombs defies belief. Thank You Royal Air Force.
@@charlesburgoyne-probyn6044Imagine adm. Lütjens Was not aboard Bismarck and kapt. Lindemann has to order this ship alone, he had surely opend fire against the hood first and finnished up the PoW after sinking the hood for sure. Maybe he then headed back to norway.
Very interesting. Would have been more interesting if a naval architect, ship builder or a professional mainier had been included to better identify the parts of the ship shown in the photos.
The section hanging from the crane at 14:16mins is the same section of bow later commented on at 15:28mins. Sorry if someone has already pointed this out.
steel plates from Tirpitz are still used today. By the road administration, when they dig up a road, they would put those steel plates over, to cover it.
Someone stated that this ship was a more psychological threat than a real one. She was built very large on purpose. With giant guns and turrets. Mostly for show. When the brits took aerial photos they were so shocked that they even re-routed a convoy of supply ships to avoid her guns . Well it worked.
At minute 9 or so, the cylindric shape is the barbette of a 15 cm turret. You can clearly see that it ends on the steep shape of the armoured deck (Panzerdeck, auf seiner Böschung). That´s probably turret Stb II, due to it´s small distance to the ship´s skin. So i can confirm the assumption, to my humble opinion. And there was indeed one of Tirpitz´ diesel generators in use since some years. It still exists and is a museum, don´t ask me where, but not too far from the wreck site.
Even if Tirpitz was not destroyed and say, survived the war. I do not think she was really able to contribute for anything for the Axis war effort; she really was in a bad way. Would of made a great museum.
14:20 looks like the entire bow section, including the gaps in the side of the deck for the anchors to slide down. Imagine how many tons that piece weighs. X__X
Ship probably had the worst crew morale of any in the Kriegsmarine. Sitting around in harbor, endless painting and cleaning, not going anywhere. Where the main job is to do nothing but look dangerous doing it.
I wonder if the Germans removed the dead sailors or the remains of the sailors were still being removed as the ship was scrapped despite the fact that the was a vessel of Hitler's Navy it was still a war grave just like its sister ship the Bismarck was It's interesting that vessels that were War Graves were salvaged back in the day just the Mutsu even though nowadays these vessels would have been left in place as monuments the dead sailors
When the road authorities in Oslo dig over the road, large steel plates are placed over the hole so that vehicles can still drive on the street. These steel plates are called "Tirpitz", perhaps because such plates once came from the warship?
Im assuming that sailors' remains, fuel, and explosives were removed long before the scrapping, but imagine that task would be very difficult with the capsizing.
Just a guess and I certainly am not familiar with this ship, but I assume that most of the large shells and powder would have been stored deep in the ship and thus would have been exposed first as they cut the bottom out.
@6:20 What is the row of letters on her hull? Was it some kind of wording or was it lettering used to identify certain sections for the scrapping & recovery process?
By the time the German salvage team arrived the Norwegians had already disassembled her shaft and cut off her manganese propellers because they were worth a lot of money on the scrap market.
I visited Haakoy a few years ago and the only remains were an offshore wooden jetty on which a crane ran. I assume the crane was used in the final stages of scrapping. Also in evidence were the craters caused by the Tallboy near misses and a tiny memorial plaque. Must have been a terrible job working on the hulks internals not only highly dangerous but the 1000+ corpses as well.
Her outline is still visible from the air at certain approaches when landing at Tromsø airport, or at least it was 10 or so years ago. Perhaps the tide needs to be low for it to be visible, and weather conditions are often rough so i only saw her once despite having flown there quite a few times, but when i did i remember it to appear clear as day.
@@twozerouk i had a look as well. In the desktop version of google earth i can choose different times when pictures have been taken. In the latest one, the jetty is again visible. In the online version of maps, the sunlight reflects right into the camera from the waves. The tide also seems at nearly its highest. I wanted to back up my own claims from the previous comment as well so i did some quick digging and it seems what remains is just scattered leftovers after the salvage op. In my mind i clearly remembered a lentil shaped ghostly outline from what definitely looked like a capsized ship but i might remember wrong. I was young and it was pointed out to me. Maybe i misunderstood them and my young mind turned that jetty into the ship somehow. In some pictures i do think i am faintly seeing something though. Enough that i intend to look more into it right now
Really random request/question but does anybody know what the wreck of HMS Hood looks like? I've never seen anything of her wreck aside from her bell thay was raised and restored, due to the nature of her sinking I know they're probably isnt much of her wreck thats still recognizable thats still intact but I'm still intrigued to see what they look like/what remains on the bottom of the Denmark Strait.
Hood is in 4 main pieces. The bow, from the front of A turret, appears to have suffered a major implosion. The ‘main hull’ from A turret to second funnel ‘ish’ area is completely upside down. The section of the hull between the aft funnel and Y turret were vapourized. The aft section, from aft of Y turret to stern post is stuck nearly vertical in the mud. It is interesting to note that the rudder indicates she was turning at the time of the explosion. The final piece is the ‘starfish’ tripod mast. None of the pieces are close together, indicating that she came apart closer to the surface.
I think they basically spun and acted like a dart. I think they expanded by a third before they broke apart and exploded (photography using mirrors). Anyone correct this if you wish. Book by Brickhill. Edit spelling
![[MV] A leap of faith...ความเชื่อใจครั้งสุดท้าย (From "Petrichor the series")](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/U1piZH2CNXA/mqdefault.jpg)
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Since it apparently isn’t obvious to some people:
When I talk ineffectual raids, I’m talking the numerous aircraft carrier raids (and odd heavy bomber raid) that did no damage. Or light damage.
Only a couple attacks, X-Craft included, did actual lasting damage.
Given the success of the attacks at Pearl Harbour and Taranto, it is a bit of a mystery why so many arttacks on Tirpitz were ineffectual.
@@whiteheatherclub Geography of the fjord.
@@whiteheatherclub Normally Tirpitz was moored in areas that could be quickly covered in smoke screens and difficult to reach by air attack. She was in THIS location to make it easier to repair the damage caused by the X-Craft raids. When the British reconned this location they identified an opportunity to reach her with Lancaster heavy bombers armed with 12,000 lb Tallboy bombs. The smoke screen wasn't as effective in this area nor was the shoreside anti-air.
IIRC Tirpitz suffered 3 direct hits with at least one of those penetrating the ship coming out through her bottom and detonating under her. One detonated in or alongside her engineering spaces with others detonating very close to her side or the shore nearby.
In addition to the very informed replies, there was a lot of A.A. deployed to defend her. Later on this was withdrawn to defend the Reich.
The underpowered Fairey Barracuda dive bombers didn’t have big enough bombs to penetrate down to a magazine.
A lot of pipes from Tirpitz were reused as water suply pipes in Tromsø, a town close to where the ship was sunk. Most of those has been replaced by now, but there are still a few still in use.
Source: I am a civil engieneer who work in water mamagement in Norway
Thank you mr. Andy
Interesting!
So you actually have far newer pipes in Tromso than many US East Coast cities. I plumber I spoke with about 5 years ago at work had been doing seasonal work over in the USA in cities that still had timber barrel type and lead pipes being used for drinking water supply. The various pipes were 150 to 200 years in service. 😮
Working at a school that is now 165 years old in Melbourne Australia, I was still a little bit shocked.
Very interesting👍
Very Cool.
Some of the plates were used to cover holes in the roads in Oslo when they were repearing pipes and conduits below ground.
They're still being utilised for the same purpose
Not only Oslo. but all around Norway. probably still in use today.
I’ve seen and walked on them most likely. Quite sad when I think back on it
Batlle ship 7:33 ? So what's that , submarine 1780¿‽
Tripitz's generators were put to work ashore. She helped electrify northern Norway.
what i know about the crew after the sinking is that every crew member found inside the wreck, was handled with dignity
as any human would be. The bodies was placed into nicely made coffins and send home to Germany to there families as is the right thing to do . Remember they are just boys , following orders given by there leaders in a time of war. My grandfather was a scrapper on the Tirpitz he did operate the big welders they used to Cut the thick panzer plates into pieces. He said they were told not to talk or share what they did see and experienced on board. He brought home some kitchen equipment and a weapon locking case. most things has been given to the local Tirpitz museum. but i still have a few small items gifted to me by my grandfather that i will pass own to my own children one day. Thou my grandfather open up and told everything in his last years alive and told everything to a historian. and just a year after that he got a stroke in his head and he could not even remember his families beside my grandmother. But he remember everything from back then, he even ask for his coworkers from back then. it was like his mind was reset back to the end of ww2. He passed away about 2 years after this stroke. but we don't know who is left alive from this scrapping crew if any, but we like to believe he was among the last Rest in peace too all the crew members of Tirpitz that passed away onboard the ship. The ship will always be part of my families history
It's amazing how this battleship would employ many workers and be a part of their families for generations.
I would disagree that she was among the most useless of all battleships. Just the threat of her reaching the open sea tied up scores of Allied ships and aircraft that could've been used in other theaters instead. She spent her career as a massive chess piece and proved quite good at it, even if that wasn't her designed role.
The Lonely Queen of the North
The problem is that was entirely due to the Allies failing to realize she wasn’t a threat and was already contained. They could have just ignored her and done themselves a favor.
True, but her sitting tight in a fjord must have killed morale onboard, she never fired her awesome guns against allied shipping during the war
After HMS Campbeltown, the threat of Tirpitz going rogue on allied ships was basically non-existent. All they had to do was do some relatively serious damage to him and he'd be out of action till the end of the war.
@@pukovnikklefeld
That threat was nonexistent even BEFORE Operation Chariot, which was pointless in hindsight. The Germans didn’t even have enough fuel to make Tirpitz a credible threat.
Some debris were left behind near Håkøya. The sea plane deck can still be seen above water at low tide. The keel remains on the shallow sea bed and still attracts divers. Hikers still find grenade fragments on the hills and mountains in the background on these images. That's where many of the grenades fired from the battleship against attacking planes landed. Until the shipyard moved to the north tip of Tromsø island a few years ago, some armour plates from Tirpitz' hull were stored there. You could see why bombs couldn't penetrate the armour. It was truly massive. Thanks for compiling and sharing!
One of Tirpitz small boats to cary the officers to and from shores survived. I saw it in a boatyard in Oslo in 1994. Owner of the boatyard told me it was from Tirpitz, People from germany had been there and wanted to buy and restore it but it was to far gone by then. It was used a few years after that but was in the end towed out and sunked. I compared it with photos of tirpitz and it was identical to one of the boats besides the funnel of tirpitz.
14:08 Starboard side of the bow up side down! Great video!🥰
Thanks for such a great collection of pictures. I was 8 years old when "Sink the Bismark" was new in theaters and I still research much of WWII history. My father rose to the rank of Lt. Colonel in the Army during WWII; but he was in the Pacific theater. I have previously searched for pictures of the Tirpitz; but this was the largest collection of the deconstruction photos I have ever seen.
Those circular tubes are 38cm rear cartridges for main guns, you can see powder magazine shelving at top of picture. The circular ( large) section is secondary battery inner barbette.
Have you got any stats on how many bodies were found inside during the scrapping?
The salvage story of this ship always manages to skip over the interesting questions; What about the ammunition? The large shells removed or still there? The Crew? Remains recovered and interned? Where were they buried? How many? Is the remaining metal valuable and worth another salvage effort? (Metal under water during Nuclear weapons testing has value?). Were all the big guns removed? Any environmental issues with ship’s bunker oil? Apparently these are sensitive topics and Information is hard to find. * Thanks for a super video.
Wasn't it under repair when it was sunk? If so, I'd imagine that the ammo was ashore.
Good point. Assuming this active w.s. with amo aboard. Other damaged g.w.s. did have amo removed.@@bingbong7316
I had no idea the Tirpitz was scrapped! I knew she sank but figured it was deep underwater. Great video.
The story of Tirpitz sinking is fairly epic, some good YT videos on it.
Shallow draft in that place.
14:15 is the bow section. You can see where the anchors would have rested.
Some amateur journalist wrote a piece on Tirpitz some 20 years ago where he stated that the hull was raised and was taken back to Blohm&Voss ship yard to be scrapped - but as you see here the hull was torn apart where it capsized in Norway and yes i have been looking for years for these pictures.
Tirpirz’s hull that is towable would have to be uprighted, and towed south and into the Baltic sea. These photos showed the hull was no longer seaworthy.
Well someone didn't do their research properly did they?
Several people have asked for information about the corpses inside the ship. That has been something I have also wondered about over many years. But the other question is why they were allowed to cut away at what, in effect, is a war grave. Who did Tirpitz belong to at the time it was scrapped? A German government did not exist in 1948, so who gave permission for the ship to be salvaged? And why should it make a difference whether a ship is completely below water or partly above? HMS Royal Oak is treated as a war grave and, as such, is protected. Why not the Tirpitz?
The simplest answer is this:
It’s 1948, Norway. You and your country just came out of a multi year occupation. And even if one of the relatively lighter handed ones, it’s still the Nazis.
You have a big hunk of valuable steel, in the form of one of The Occupier’s battleships, rusting away.
Did they really care it was full of corpses? Most definitely not. Royal Oak is a bit of a different case…
But, then again, Mutsu was full of bodies and it didn’t stop the Japanese from scrapping her.
Arizona, Royal Oak, they’re a bit more of an exception than a rule in a lot of ways.
This isn’t to say I agree with it, but it is a fact of life with ships sunk in shallow anchorages like that.
It’s easier to cordon off a wreck in deeper water, like Jutland, decades after the event. Ditto the Java Sea wrecks, although their designation as war graves did little good.
Here the former captain of a U-boat who survived her sinking actually participated in the postwar salvage of his old boat, where most of his crew died. Different and desperate times. Most of Europe was financially broke from the war, and salvage was income.
th-cam.com/video/EoJto7mKmXk/w-d-xo.htmlsi=0qnJPHGg4kY9iHP2
I dont think the international classification of a war grave existed in 1948. Even in this day and age some people and their government do not respect it, i.e. Chinese salvage companies loot WW2 wrecks and the Chinese government only shrugs. And I'm sure they are not the only ones. The logic behind it is simple: It's not remains from our people and these ships sometimes sank halfway around the globe from home - so what?
The remains of invading murderous brutes deserved absolutely no respect from what had been a perfectly decent innocent and neutral country before the nazi attack. Presumably any offensive semi-composted waste would have been dumped in deep water?
2
The biggest navy operation from the germans was the reparing of Tirpitz up in norway - after the x-crafts attack the hull of the ship had gone through a state of whipping which means that the hull had swayed violently making the auxelery engine and propelshaft out of alignment making it not fit to sail , the ship-yard workers succeded in straiting the shafts again making the Tirpitz able to sail again at a lesser topspeed thought but a partly succes .
Whipping or do you mean that the explosions put a wind in the machinery alignment, somewhat akin to a board of timber that has been carelessly stored and developed a wind or twist to it?
Thanks for a very interesting video. I would have thought that the ship's armour plates would have been the first things to be recovered seeing as how much good steel was used to fabricate them.
If you ever visit Kristiansund, Norway, visit Mellemværftet museum, a historic shipyard. They cut up a number of plates from the Tirpitz there, and one plate is still there to view along the back wall in the main room next to the smithy. Apparently many of the plates were used for road repair.
Thank you so much for doing such a fascinating video! I never realized the effort to scrap her wreck was a multinational one, and I’ve actually never seen any of the pictures of her scrapping process before, so all of those photos were totally new to me. I was honestly about to mention the knives made from her hull, but you beat me to it, and as a collector of historical artifacts, I completely agree with the sentiments on finding a ‘legit’ Tirpitz hill knife.
Thank you again so much for doing this video!! Made my morning to watch this, and I always enjoy your content!!
Last note: I don’t know if you already have made a vid about this, but I’m curious if there has been any efforts to locate the wreck of Sharnhorst. I think the royal navy had a rough note of where she sank, but I honestly am I unsure. You are much more capable of researching this topic than I am, and I would hope you end up finding out something as interesting as you did for Tirpitz.
Thank you again so much for an awesome video, sorry to make this comment so long, and I hope you have a wonderful rest of your weekend!!
Scharnhorst (both of them, they found the WW1 armored cruiser a couple years back) has been located. There’s apparently some really, really rough footage out there.
I haven’t seen it, though.
The armored cruiser has some nice pics, at least.
Just outside my home, vis-a-vis the Railway station here in Drammen, Norway, are there several Steel Armour plate from Tirpitz!😳
Each 5 cm. thick - 5 meters long and 2.5 meters wide, used by 'VY', Norway's state railways to cover excavation work at the railway station🚂
This excavation work has been going on for 2 years and they will not be finished until 2025-
- Not a sign of rust on the steel!!!
Cars with studded tires drive over in winter. The roads are salted! What does it say about the steel quality? The steel was produced for salt water!
I read an article about 40 years ago that stated that the generators and turbines were repurposed in Norway as part of a stationary power plant.
14:12 That chunk pulled off...it's the bow! It's inverted but you can see the anchor cluses and the way it tapers to a point along the bottom! 15:00, don't think it's plate, its just outer shell attached to a hull frame, you can just see that the frame is in the shape of an I beam.
im planning to visit the site where she was scrapped since i live in norway. And i hope to maybe get a piece of her home with me. I know that it’s a war grave and shouldn’t be touched. So I’ll ask if I can pick one piece from her wreck and take home with me and have beside my Tirpitz model
Many people here asked about the fate of the crew. From Wikipedia: 916 of the crew on "Tirpitz" died, 807 were rescued ashore. Of those who survived, 87 were saved by the rescue crews cutting in through the ship's side.
That large curved object starting at 8:40 couldn't be a barbette since we're looking from the bottom upward toward the main deck. A barbette from this angle would look like a circular object. It seems it could be a main condenser given its size and position in the ship. Or, perhaps the bottom of a turbine casing or main reduction gear.
yeah,maybe part of the seachest,/condensor setup would be my guess.
I've not seen many photos of her being scrapped. Thanks for that
7:00 & 14:00 - looking forward from midships. 9:00 - you are correct - the center 15cm turret Barbette and angled Armoured Deck, with the remaining armour plate at 10:00. 15:00 - that armour plate is indeed 320mm thick with 50mm wooden backing bolted to hull frame. Some cool photos to see. Thanks for posting them. Respect
Tirpirz was a threat to convoys just being in position too. Without even putting out to sea. The German navy hadn’t even enough fuel oil for Tirpitz to operate
she caused the destruction of PQ17
@@DieWitness …. Yes. However the Kriegsmarine had little fuel oil in Norway to take a battleship to sea. Fuel oil for Tripitz was a distant priority in Berlin. PQ17 was destroyed by a bad Royal Navy decision to abandon it.
@@DieWitness And this without leaving the fjord.
I'm surprised there is so much armor playe left lying around. As "Pre-Atomic" steel, it is required for sensitive radiation detectors and other scientific instruments. "They" say that background radiation levels have fallen since atmospheric testing stopped in 1963, but pre-war steel is still needed for high end equipment.
This makes me wonder if there's warehouses full of Scapa steel out there, being that commodity, and there having been a somewhat generous source of it.
Very interesting pictures. Thank you.
Great video...👍
I am pretty sure the single gun being lifted out of the water near the end of the video was one of her 105 mm heavy anti aircraft guns. They were paired in open gun mounts, not in turrets.
Times 14:06 and 15:55 look like the same forecastle lift. The picture showing the starboard propeller also has torpedo nets in the water so it must have been taken in war time.
The starboard side remained above water and the No. 1 generator room contained four 500 kwatt diesel generators which could have been useful once decontaminated and overhauled. There was another starboard side only 460 kwatt diesel generator room. The boiler steam powered turbo generators from stbd generator room 3 might have been unsuitable for peacetime use.
Gaining controlled access to the unexploded A, B and D turret magazines would have been important for safety. Some of the ‘tubes’ might have been removed multi-part brass cased 380mm propellant charges?
I know that some salvaged rusty Tirpitz firearms were kept as souvenirs in Norway.
i just been watching some videos regarding smelting of Silver, completely unrelated, but it does really make you think of the human resource in getting to this stage - ore pulled from the ground, iron smelted, and steel produced, a ship built and sunk, and then all the resources again to strip her down and melt down to be reused - it baggers belief in so many ways, quite extraordinary - i wonder how much gas used used cutting her up and the costs involved - i wonder how much of her and where she is, how many cars she might have made, what percentage is still in use, and i don't mean the raw plates as suggested to cover holes in roads etc as described, fascinating stuff
I miss a single word mentioning the bodies inside the ship and the procedures of how they dealt with them...
Since there were germans involved and Norwegians generally being civilized people I suppose they were buried on land next to the wreck site. I know there's a german war cemetary there
A grandson of one of the scrappers did mention that his grandfather said that the bodies were removed as the ship was scrapped put in coffins and sent back to Germany to their families. 🙏
This vid is well done re: Tirpitz. I enjoyed it very much ty.
The picture of the guy standing in the compartment on top of wires is that of an electrical switchboard and you;re correct, he's on the overhead.
The salvagers must have come across so many bodies which is very sobering.
Was waiting for you to do Tirpitz.A beast of a ship .
Some measurements. Length of 251 metres (823 ft),Tirpitz weighed over 50,000 tons when fully loaded. The steel in the hull was 30 cm (12”) thick. Tirpitz had eight 38 cm (15”) guns, some of the biggest naval guns ever built. The vessel had a crew of more than 2,600, including 100 officers. Between 950 and 1200 did die when capzied.
Another great vid as always! I swear even with the plans in front of me I wouldnt be able to figure out ass from head inside the Tirpitz while it was being scrapped
I’ve always wondered why the Germans did not wait a year so and use the Bismarck and Tirpitz together along with Scharnhorst and Gneisenau in a fleet operations mode like US Navy used with their battleships. Not doing so allowed the more potent Royal Navy to pick them off one by one. I can’t imagine what damage they could have done together.
They could not afford to lose both ships, and it had little to do with their size or firepower and all to do with mental intimidation to the Allies.
Bismarck's sortie was actually a plan of the head of the German Navy. He had been given orders by Hitler to sink shipping (but having contradictory statements of basically wiping out all merchantmen, but take no risks or suffer any damage themselves). The German Army & Air Force were on a high since the Fall of France & the low countries (& had many prominent figures leading them), & no doubt the head of the German Navy wanted to show what 'his' force could do. Everyone was trying to get Hitlers attention & favours. Hitler wasn't too keen on the plan, but the head of the navy said it was too late to stop it. Hitler was probably also thinking about Yugoslavia & the soon to be invasion of Russia.
One other thing was Hitler was determined to keep the Russian invasion secret, & keep up the pretense that the only war happening was in the West. A naval sortie would be a good distraction for political purposes.
With hindsight, it does seem a lot better to conserve forces when your ships are all together (although in reality, you may not have enough fuel to do it), or use the Bismark & Tirpitz in the Baltic supporting the land forces, while still keeping the British navy in port in case they break out into the Atlantic.
Hitler wasn't exactly known for his patience, now was he! Plan Z for the German Navy was barely half way done when he miss-calculated over Poland and started WWII.
@@markfryer9880 So true! Germanys navy had the biggest destroyer of the world - the one with the Schnauzer......
None of the German battleships were intended to fight against other battleships, they all had the mission to attack and sink convoys and so starve Britain. The Bismarck had instructions to avoid any battle with the Royal Navy.
The round thing that you are curious about, looks like a funnel that was snapped off at the waterline as it rolled over. Generally they are not built with heavy thick metal.
At 14:25 that is clearly tirpitz now having been cut off. Flip the image and u can see the cutouts for I’m assuming the anchors to run out
The shot of her secondary turret was cool, showing just how much bigger thise guns were than the secondary of other ships. Much bigger than the 5 inchers on us ships, though in reality, the dual purpose 5 inch did a lot more good for their ships.
The main gun ammunition, and also crew remains must have been substantial. Were there any records or what was found ever documented?
I would assume so, but I haven’t found much mention of the bodies. Which is why I didn’t bring it up, since I had no information *to* bring up.
I wonder how many of those salvage workers came across a Luger and simply stuffed it in their pants and kept their mouth shut?
@@DK-gy7ll I heard a guy say he inherited a rusty Tirpitz luger. Stuff from the submerged parts of the wreck would be harmless.
I read somewhere, (can’t remember the actual article) that (allegedly) bones recovered were simply tossed into the water. Bits of uniform, buttons etc could thereafter, be found on the shore line. A local minister heard of it and intervened and made efforts to have remains buried with some respect. There was little sympathy for Germans in Norway following the war. The treatment of children of German soldiers born to Norwegian women was particularly cruel.
@@givenfirstnamefamilyfirstn3935 Cordite propellant is not harmless, this has been shown when cordite recovered from one of teh Battle of Jutland wrecks had exposed cordite bundles, some were brought to the surface and they still would ignite when a match was used to ignite some.
As I recall from my reading when much younger, some of Tirpitz's generators were cleaned up and reused in shore applications.
The heavy plates that were cast aside during the scrapping operation and other pieces still on the bottom may be worth recovering today as they were made long before radioactive fallout could have contaminated the steel, the same reason that many of the ships sunk in Pacific battles have been illegally scrapped.
Contaminated steel from nuclear blasts is no longer really a thing anymore fyi
@@Mii_Oh_Nine Really? Preatomic age steel such as found in those Pacific wrecks and Tirpitz lacks the small amount of background radiation that post atomic test steel contains. That lack of trace radiation makes the older steel more valuable for use in CT scanners, Geiger counters and other precision instruments. It is STILL very much a thing.
@@robertf3479 many years ago that used to be the case, nowadays the radiation levels in the atmosphere has greatly decreased, not to mention those uses for low background steel are very niche
Yes, during my norway trip this year I visited the north cap , the guid explains in the smal village of Honnigsvaeg is a generator from the tirpitz is installed in a small wooden building near the harbour...Marc
It used to, modern smelting tech has rendered that pretty m uch obsolete.@@robertf3479
I had an uncle who was stationed in Germany toward the end of Vietnam who decided he wanted either a fixed or folding by pocket knife made from the Tirpitz, he went into Norway and discovered the prices they were asking for those knives was greater than he felt it was worth and just before Russia invaded Ukraine One of my friends from Kyiv having heard the story of the pocket knives also investigated only to discover the price of those knives equalled a small Sedan from China!!! 🤠👍
I wonder how they salvaged the rest below the waterline. I mean it was fairly easy as long as you had the hull providing a natural Cofferdam so to speak, but as soon as they cut away too deeply this must have been exclusively diver's work.
Half of the hull bottom was exposed in the last photo. The superstructure was underwater while the hull side and hull bottom formed a V jutting out of the water. In an earlier photo, the stabilizer on the amidships was shown.
Tirpitz will always be very interesting to me since I live a short drive away from where it capsized.
BadMan, Can you still see the bomb craters from the tall boy bombs?? And 2nd question, does anything stick out of the water at low tide?? Thanks
The skeletons inside that hull could had been grim and nasty.
wait till you find out about the ones inside the ships at pearl harbor..
War is not a pretty thing
By the time they pulled Oklahoma up rite and cleaned her out, even the bones of her crew had dissolved into the nasty saltwater/chemical bath that had filled her for almost four years.
@@JohnnySmithWhite-wd4eywow! That quickly?
What a foolish and stupid remark to make...!
Those 'ineffectual' raids did enough damage to keep it unusable. The Grand Slam 10 ton bomb that hit Tirpitz ended up blowing one turret right off the ship, and a few of the massive ball bearings supporting it were found up to 3 miles away. The bombs were NOT meant to hit the ship but to explode deep down near the ship, they were 'earthquake' bombs. It didn't seem to matter much. I met Barnes Wallace at a lecture during my apprenticeship who was the inventor, he was a quiet gentle man. Definitely 'no wide open spaces surrounded by teeth, an English engineer of the old school.
There were over 40 attempts made to sink Tirpitz, and the vast majority was indeed ineffectual. Tirpitz didnt leave that Fjord due to any damage for the most part, but because of a fleet on 'Tirpitz watch' out on sea, making any attempt to break out a futile effort. On the other hand, the Germans also appreciated the fact that their last remaining battleship would tie up a number of allied capital ships just by sitting there instead.
5.4 tonne Tallboys.
@@Ganiscolit was a combination of having a single usable dry dock and every ship in the nearest vicinity being raised for tirpitz head. That and also fuel issues, something the axis seemed to always have issues with.
The Tallboy crater shown in the opening shot is still there and can be seen quite clearly on Google Earth, as well as some of the underwater craters from near misses that hit the water around Tirpitz.
I hope that those craters were checked properly that the Tallboys had gone off?
You wouldn't want an unexploded Tallboy sitting in the fiord slowly rusting to it's dangerous demise?
I visited the site of the Tirpitz wreck in 1968. The hull, of course was completely gone, but much remained to remind you of what happened there. I remember an enormous crater and a very large turbine, the size of a sedan, sitting on the beach. There was also a lot of small debris littering the beach. I picked up a light fixture and a door handle as souvenirs , but my Norwegian mother disposed of them, as they reminded her of the sailors who died on the ship.
At 14:28 and 15.40, I’m fairly certain those are both photos of the bow
Yes, with that sharp narrow curve, that's got to be the bow.
As some pointed out, the wreck is just pieces left behind underwater and some are on the shore. You can still see the craters left from tall boy bombs
RIP to the brave crew of KMS Tirpitz.
You are miles out when you called her useless. The fact that Tirpitz kept floating, presented a real, and severe threat to any convoy, this Tirpitz tied up a vast amount of the UK's resources, whether hunting her if she left her lair, or in trying to put her out of action, or simply keeping sufficient strength of force within range to scare Hitler into not risking her in combat.
Remember, it took 74 ships to hunt down and sink Bismarck. Churchill was mindful of what Bismarck did to the Hood, and the damage to the PoW which it could have also sunk had Lutjens chosen to pursue. Most probably the two heavy cruisers in pursuit would have been lost as they rushed to help the PoW. If that had happened, the Bismarck could, conceivably, have escaped the net and made it to Brest for repairs.
In the above scenario, one German BB would have knocked out two top line British BB's. The moral implications of this would have been huge. Britain could not afford to lose capital ships two at a time, given that Bismarck would have got away (first time) relatively unscathed, it would have been supposed by the Admiralty that a similar outcome was likely at each engagement, running battleships in two's, or three's was not a practical option as Britain had to defend her colonies, convoys, and was, at that point in the war, fighting the Nazis on her own.
Of course, ALL the above is conjecture, but the Tirpitz threat was real, and Churchill knew it so, the game of cat and mouse was played until the RAF did what they do best in an precision attack the accuracy of the bombs defies belief. Thank You Royal Air Force.
💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💯💯💯💯💯💯💯
Brave? They shelled a shed on an island.
@@charlesburgoyne-probyn6044Imagine adm. Lütjens Was not aboard Bismarck and kapt. Lindemann has to order this ship alone, he had surely opend fire against the hood first and finnished up the PoW after sinking the hood for sure.
Maybe he then headed back to norway.
Very interesting. Would have been more interesting if a naval architect, ship builder or a professional mainier had been included to better identify the parts of the ship shown in the photos.
The section hanging from the crane at 14:16mins is the same section of bow later commented on at 15:28mins. Sorry if someone has already pointed this out.
steel plates from Tirpitz are still used today. By the road administration, when they dig up a road, they would put those steel plates over, to cover it.
Someone stated that this ship was a more psychological threat than a real one. She was built very large on purpose. With giant guns and turrets. Mostly for show. When the brits took aerial photos they were so shocked that they even re-routed a convoy of supply ships to avoid her guns . Well it worked.
Germany spent all that money to reroute a convoy?
At minute 9 or so, the cylindric shape is the barbette of a 15 cm turret. You can clearly see that it ends on the steep shape of the armoured deck (Panzerdeck, auf seiner Böschung). That´s probably turret Stb II, due to it´s small distance to the ship´s skin. So i can confirm the assumption, to my humble opinion. And there was indeed one of Tirpitz´ diesel generators in use since some years. It still exists and is a museum, don´t ask me where, but not too far from the wreck site.
At 4.38, the main gun turret shown is I think from IJN Mutsu. Certainly not from Tirpitz.
@@petetimbrell3527 ...As told in the comment, but you´re right.
Image at 14:20 is the bow of the ship upside down. you can see both of the anchor notches
Hi, at time stop 14:28, that is the upper bow, easily identified by its curvature and the anchor hawse sockets
Even if Tirpitz was not destroyed and say, survived the war. I do not think she was really able to contribute for anything for the Axis war effort; she really was in a bad way. Would of made a great museum.
Yep, got my Tirpitz sitting on my desk right now and a piece of her twxk deck sitting next to it.
Tirpitz: I'm unsinkable.
Tallboy: Hold my Beer.
14:20 looks like the entire bow section, including the gaps in the side of the deck for the anchors to slide down. Imagine how many tons that piece weighs. X__X
I would have liked to learn how the magazines were emptied and who did it. She had a awful lot of live ammo and propellant powder aboard.
Ship probably had the worst crew morale of any in the Kriegsmarine.
Sitting around in harbor, endless painting and cleaning, not going anywhere.
Where the main job is to do nothing but look dangerous doing it.
Maybe! U boaters in early 43 were probably real competition for lowest morale title.
I seem to remember that they were really well fed compared to others during the war.
She wasn't built Fjord tough.
🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️
One thing not mentioned is that salvaging a ship like this is unexploded ordnance. Several tones of it! Cut carefully - very carefully!
I wonder if the Germans removed the dead sailors or the remains of the sailors were still being removed as the ship was scrapped despite the fact that the was a vessel of Hitler's Navy it was still a war grave just like its sister ship the Bismarck was
It's interesting that vessels that were War Graves were salvaged back in the day just the Mutsu even though nowadays these vessels would have been left in place as monuments the dead sailors
When the road authorities in Oslo dig over the road, large steel plates are placed over the hole so that vehicles can still drive on the street. These steel plates are called "Tirpitz", perhaps because such plates once came from the warship?
If this interests you, read Cox's Navy, which is about the salvage of the German fleet in Scapa Flow.
Simply awesome one of my favorite that you have done can't thank you enough looking forward to the next one
Im assuming that sailors' remains, fuel, and explosives were removed long before the scrapping, but imagine that task would be very difficult with the capsizing.
Looks like the stack to me.
Just a guess and I certainly am not familiar with this ship, but I assume that most of the large shells and powder would have been stored deep in the ship and thus would have been exposed first as they cut the bottom out.
I wonder if the round section in the photo at 10:00 is a ventilator leading up to a funnel.
Do you know what percentage of the ship was salvaged?
@6:20 What is the row of letters on her hull? Was it some kind of wording or was it lettering used to identify certain sections for the scrapping & recovery process?
My father's first job was salvaging th Tirpitz, he was on a barge.
I'm surprised there's not more photographs of the main turrets being raised
They would be broken up from the ‘underside’. The empty shells would have been cut up.
14.15 and 15.25 would appear to be different angles of the upper bow
I have a knife made from Tirpitz steel ;)
By the time the German salvage team arrived the Norwegians had already disassembled her shaft and cut off her manganese propellers because they were worth a lot of money on the scrap market.
Love that pond created by a 'Tall Boy'.
You can still see them today on google earth!
How did the breakers handle the stored ammunition?
I visited Haakoy a few years ago and the only remains were an offshore wooden jetty on which a crane ran. I assume the crane was used in the final stages of scrapping. Also in evidence were the craters caused by the Tallboy near misses and a tiny memorial plaque. Must have been a terrible job working on the hulks internals not only highly dangerous but the 1000+ corpses as well.
Thank you. I just commented that you can see those craters quite clearly on Google Earth.
Her outline is still visible from the air at certain approaches when landing at Tromsø airport, or at least it was 10 or so years ago. Perhaps the tide needs to be low for it to be visible, and weather conditions are often rough so i only saw her once despite having flown there quite a few times, but when i did i remember it to appear clear as day.
Interesting I just had a look on Google maps and the wooden jetty I mentioned has disappeared possibly collapsed or dismantled?@@Hamring
@@twozerouk i had a look as well. In the desktop version of google earth i can choose different times when pictures have been taken. In the latest one, the jetty is again visible. In the online version of maps, the sunlight reflects right into the camera from the waves. The tide also seems at nearly its highest.
I wanted to back up my own claims from the previous comment as well so i did some quick digging and it seems what remains is just scattered leftovers after the salvage op. In my mind i clearly remembered a lentil shaped ghostly outline from what definitely looked like a capsized ship but i might remember wrong. I was young and it was pointed out to me. Maybe i misunderstood them and my young mind turned that jetty into the ship somehow.
In some pictures i do think i am faintly seeing something though. Enough that i intend to look more into it right now
@@markzerkle1899 thanks for that information... Ill definitely do a Google search on those crators....
¿Qué paso con los cadáveres de los tripulantes que quedaron atrapados dentro del casco?
The piping looks like 6-8 inch unexploded shells. There would be thousands scattered around.
Thanks for posting. Some really interesting pictures.
Do you know whether any of the armour plating was taken for testing by the allied nations?
I believe the generators were reused in the power station in Tromso
Really random request/question but does anybody know what the wreck of HMS Hood looks like? I've never seen anything of her wreck aside from her bell thay was raised and restored, due to the nature of her sinking I know they're probably isnt much of her wreck thats still recognizable thats still intact but I'm still intrigued to see what they look like/what remains on the bottom of the Denmark Strait.
I would imagine it's not much more than a pile of splintered steel.
Hood is in 4 main pieces. The bow, from the front of A turret, appears to have suffered a major implosion. The ‘main hull’ from A turret to second funnel ‘ish’ area is completely upside down. The section of the hull between the aft funnel and Y turret were vapourized. The aft section, from aft of Y turret to stern post is stuck nearly vertical in the mud. It is interesting to note that the rudder indicates she was turning at the time of the explosion. The final piece is the ‘starfish’ tripod mast. None of the pieces are close together, indicating that she came apart closer to the surface.
Did the the main armament get salvaged or are the turrets embedded in the bottom of the fyord??
Question when they searched for survivors, did they find them?
Those tall boy bombs took no prisoners! They reckon the bomb acted more like a missile as to hit the target .
I think they basically spun and acted like a dart. I think they expanded by a third before they broke apart and exploded (photography using mirrors). Anyone correct this if you wish. Book by Brickhill. Edit spelling