RAF Lancasters sink Tirpitz at Tromsø
Lancasters of Nos. 9 and 617 Squadrons attacked Tirpitz at Håkøya with 12,000-pound Tallboy bombs. Direct hits and near misses caused catastrophic damage; the battleship capsized at her anchorage. Tirpitz had already been repeatedly damaged and was no longer operating as the mobile threat she had represented in 1942, but her destruction removed the last German battleship from the Arctic equation. By the winter of 1944–45 the remaining danger to the convoys came principally from submarines, mines, aircraft and the environment rather than a major surface interception.
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