Konstam, Angus/Laurier, Jim (Illustr.) Sink the Tirpitz 1942-44. The RAF and Fleet Air Arm duel with Germany's mighty battleship

In 1944, the RAF launched the first of three large-scale attacks using "Lancaster" bombers armed with enormous "Tallboy" bombs. In the first, code-named Operation "Parvane", the german battleship "Tirpitz" was badly damaged. In the third air attack, carried out in November 1944, the battleship was hit three times, and she capsized and sank, taking most of her crew down with her. Her passing broke German naval power in Arctic waters, which in turn allowed the Allies to divert their naval resources to the Pacific, where the ocean-wide campaign was reaching its climax. The air campaign against the "Tirpitz" was one of vital strategic importance, and while low-key compared to air operations over mainland Europe, it was one where a single bomb could dramatically influence the course of the war. These British airmen faced tough opposition from the weather, terrain, ground defenses, the Luftwaffe and from the well-armed battleship herself, which, while rendering it tough for them, make this a dramatic story of air power's triumph against the odds. Technically, the 1944 air campaign was a test bed for a new generation of super-bomb. The "Tallboy", designed by Barnes-Wallis of Dambuster fame, was a five ton "seismic bomb", capable of destroying the battleship when other more conventional ordnance had failed. These ground-breaking bombs were the forerunners of the devastating bunker-busting weaponry of the post-war era.

Illustrated with a large number of contemporary photographs, colour illustrations of dramatic moments from the series of attacks on the "Tirpitz" and three-dimensional colour maps, the book describes the strategic background, operational and technical (development of the special "Tallboy" bombs) planning and the course of the various air raids on the German battleship.