Documentry on Sinking Tirpitz
Posted: Mon Feb 27, 2017 5:06 am
I saw this on local TV station here. I can't get the link to play, but I have already seen it. Maybe you will have better luck getting it to play:
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/the- ... /57176-001
This is a very interesting and pretty well done doc. It provides another fairly strong case that German radar operators colluding with Norwegian resistance helped impede communications preventing a warning to both the battleship and to the German fighter aircraft assigned to protect the battleship.
German records showed that the raid was detected and tracked by the Wasserman radar network for well more than an hour before the first bomb dropped, but no warnings were ever sent. The first warning for Tirpitz was when its own radar picked up the bombers when they were about 100 miles to the southeast. It was the Tirpitz itself that sent frantic calls to the Luftwaffe fighter base. The fighter base was only about 3 minutes flight time from the anchorage, and the Lancasters actually almost overflew the fighter base on the way in. The fighters were still on the ground.
The documentary also provides a good reconstruction of the actual bomb attack, including which bombs hit, and where, and when.
It includes interviews with RAF flight crew, and German sailors and pilots still living.
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/the- ... /57176-001
This is a very interesting and pretty well done doc. It provides another fairly strong case that German radar operators colluding with Norwegian resistance helped impede communications preventing a warning to both the battleship and to the German fighter aircraft assigned to protect the battleship.
German records showed that the raid was detected and tracked by the Wasserman radar network for well more than an hour before the first bomb dropped, but no warnings were ever sent. The first warning for Tirpitz was when its own radar picked up the bombers when they were about 100 miles to the southeast. It was the Tirpitz itself that sent frantic calls to the Luftwaffe fighter base. The fighter base was only about 3 minutes flight time from the anchorage, and the Lancasters actually almost overflew the fighter base on the way in. The fighters were still on the ground.
The documentary also provides a good reconstruction of the actual bomb attack, including which bombs hit, and where, and when.
It includes interviews with RAF flight crew, and German sailors and pilots still living.