SINK THE TIRPITZ

Attacking the Tirpitz as seen by Flight Lieutenant Bruce Buckham, 463 Squadron RAAF.

In September 1944 my crew and I were selected to fly the 463 Sq special aircraft to film the attacks on the giant German battleship “Tirpitz”
Although the sinking of this German battleship, which was a continual threat to the north Russian convoys of arms and ammunition, is still as vivid in my memory as the day it was achieved, some of the finer details are somewhat dimmed.
The op originally came up about mid 1944 as a “competition” between the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force to see which service could sink her first. The Navy had already had a number of previous attempts without any marked results. The “Eagles” were selected from the Dambuster Squadrons No 617 and 9 Sq (Bardney) and one Lancaster of the RAF Film Unit attached to 463 Sq Waddington, Captained by F/L Buckham and crew, F/O Board (Nav) P/O Holden (W/op) P/O Manning (B/A) F/L Gierch (R/G) F/o Proctor (M/U) P/O Sinclair (F/E) Plus two Cine—cameramen, and for the first op two newsmen.
Some 37 crews in all gathered together at Woodhall Spa and waited to hear what the target was and to receive a preliminary briefing. It was here that we had the first opportunity of meeting the famous Barnes Wallace who invented the “Tallboy”, a 12,000 lb armour piercing bomb which was 26 ft long, machined to shiny perfection.
The Lancaster was the best launching platform yet devised.
Intelligence reports had “Tirpitz” anchored in Kaa Fjord surrounded by submarine and torpedo nets. This Fjord is an extension of Alta or Aithen Fjord at the northern tip of Norway, so the actual bombing operation had to be arranged from a closer point.
The “Lancs” were stripped of their mid-upper turrets and fitted with overload tanks in the fuselage above the bomb bay and we then took off for Russia on the night of 12/13 September 1944. The Russkies led us to believe the weather would be clear but in actual fact it was 10/10 low cloud.
We descended through cloud to Onega Bay some 200 Km past Murmansk, to find 8 or 10 other aircraft milling around, and ultimately led them around the coast, about 50 ft above the beach to Archangel where it was raining heavily. Yagodnik aerodrome couldn’t be found then, so as everyone was running short on fuel we landed, after 12 hrs flying, on Kergostrov Island which was about the same size as a small “Tiger” drome, Some incongruous sights met our eyes. There were Lanc’s with their noses pushed into buildings, some with only their tails showing through walls or roofs and others on their bellies. Not all of us were there either, half the force were spread out over Russia.
When the weather cleared we had the job of getting our big bombers airborne and flying 9 Km down the Dvina River to Yag Ddnik, which we did somehow by flying out between the buildings; We were there for three days billeted on the “Ivan Kalleyev” which was a bug ridden river steamer anchored off the island. During this period we were thoroughly briefed by W/C Willie Tait and others and held our aircraft in a state of readiness. Refuelling was by way of hand pumps from 44 gallon drums. Each day PRU Mosquito did a recce to keep tabs on Tirpitz and to let us know if the weather was OK.
On September 15 the Lancaster force of 25 aircraft, took off and headed towards Alten Fjord at fairly low altitude, it was a good two hours flight across Lapland, and as we approached the Fjord, a quick climb was done to bombing heights between 13,000 and 18,000 ft. The Tallboy reached a terminal velocity of 690 mph from 13,000 ft.
My aircraft carried 12 Johnnie Walkers which were a magnetic type bomb; the ruse being to drop them inside the nets. However as we climbed we could see from 15 miles out an early warning had been given and literally hundreds of smoke canisters on the water, the ship, and the land were already doing their job thoroughly.
Willie Tait dropped his bomb, as we did our Johnnie Walkers, and heard later that it had gone right through the bows of the vessel and exploded in deep water. Our first try then had been no real score. The others flew back to Archangel and we alone returned to the UK. after 15 hours flight, the longest on record for a Lancaster bomber.
The Germans then tried sneaking Tirpitz back to Germany and very kindly brought her down to Tromso Fjord and anchored off Tromso Island, nets and all. Almost a month later, on 28/29 October we took off again from the Scottish bases Lossiemouth and Kinloss, as she was just within our reach and we could return to the UK. Again we were to be frustrated, this time by low cloud which came in from the sea quite quickly and our bombs were bought back. She seemed to be leading a charmed life. An incident occurred to our aircraft that meant crash landing at Waddington on return. About half way up the North Sea we heard a terrific crash, and in the morning light we could see the starboard leg was hanging down, engine nacelles flapping in the breeze and a gaping hole in the wing. A shell had passed through the undercarriage and between No 1 and No 2 fuel tanks so we landed on one wheel. That was a 14 hr 20 mm trip.
Two weeks later we had our third briefing. However most of us knew the details intimately by now and the flight plan was firmly imprinted in our minds. The ruse was to fly up the North Sea some hundreds of miles, cross the Norwegian coast and fly up the border between Norway and Sweden. This route was directly over the Alps, and the splendour of the snow covered range with glaciers and tinted by the Northern Lights, the Aurora Borealis, is something to be wondered at.
On the 12 November it started to snow and by 9 pm when we were told to take off it was 2 ft deep, Two aircraft ahead of us got bogged in the snow, and I had to taxi around them in flurries of snow. Only 19 aircraft managed to take off. We headed in towards Tromso Fjord, November 13 had dawned perfectly clear and still.
It was a magnificent sight to see the large snow covered island of Tromso as we climbed to height and Tirpitz anchored facing towards us. We still had about 15 minutes to fly and vast explosions were occurring in the middle and around our loose “Gaggle “ of aircraft. She was firing her 14 inch main guns at us with short delay fuses. Closer in to our target there was some sporadic ack—ack from guns lining the Fjord and by now the Tirpitz ack—ack and gunfire from two flak ships on the Fjord “hotted” things up.
We went in at 6,000 ft as Willie Tait and the others lined up to do their individual bombing runs, but this was too unhealthy so we descended to about 2,000 ft and isolated the guns lining the Fjord. One of the flak ships became somewhat pestiferous so we shot her up a bit and she disappeared up to the end of the Fjord, the other kept a respectable distance.
The bombers were right overhead now, doing a perfect bombing run, bomb-doors gaped open, the glistening tallboy wing suspended. Now they were released. To us they appeared to travel in ever so graceful a curve like a high diver, heading with deadly accuracy towards one point, right amidships of Tirpitz. The first two were near misses and then Pow;  this was followed immediately by two more in as many seconds. Suddenly there was a tremendous explosion on board. The Tirpitz appeared to try to heave herself out of the water. Carried away by this turn of events, and the suddenness of it all, we had descended to 200 ft, cameras had been whirring at their task of collecting photographic evidence of the action.
We flew over it, around it, all about it and still it sat there with dignity under a huge mushroom of smoke which plumed up a few thousand feet in the air. There were fires and more explosions on board, a huge gaping hole existed on the port side where a section had been blown out.
We had now been flying close around Tirpitz for 30 minutes or so and decided to call it a day so we headed out towards the mouth of the Fjord. Just then the rear gunner, Eric Gierch, called out “I think she is turning over” I turned back to port to have a look, and sure enough she was, so back we went again. This time we flew in at 50 ft and watched with baited breath as Tirpitz heeled over to port, ever so slowly, and gracefully.
We could see German sailors swimming, diving, jumping, and by the time she was over to 85 deg and subsiding slowly into the water of Tromso Fjord, there must have been the best part of 60 men on her side as we skimmed over for the last pass. That was the final glimpse we had as we flew out of the Fjord and over the North sea.
After a 14 hr flight, we landed back at our base Waddington, where the interrogation was conducted by Air Marshall, now the late, Sir Ralph Cochrane.
When asked how it went, my one remark was. “Well we won't have to go back after this one; Tirpitz is finished. We were very proud that so many Australian airmen were associated with this one".

This story has been reproduced from research by Nobby Blundell. Bruce Buckam DSO, DFC has personally edited this story and kindly added the on-going saga which is next. Bruce actually did 15.5 hours, not 15 as stated in the story.

THE CONTINUING SAGA

    The June issue of BHP Review brought back vivid memories to John Troeger, a Leading Hand in the raw materials and sinter department at Kiwinana.
    He read and re-read several times the article in which Brisbane Manager Bruce Buckham described the sinking of the battleship, Tirpitz. The account of the sinking was all too true to John who was on board the Tirpitz when she was destroyed by Royal Air Force bombers. 

     Serving with the German Navy, John spent two years on the Tirpitz as a signaller. During that time he survived the famous attack by midget submarines (when magnetic mines blew the keel apart) and the three RAF bombing raids.
    Early in November 1944, the Tirpitz was docked at Hakoe Island, just around the coast of the Norwegian fjord, not far from the town of Tromso. John Troeger, then 22, was on courier duty, carrying signals and despatches between the battleship and the town.
    On the morning of November 13, he was returning from Tromso when the Tirpitz’s main guns opened up. Looking quickly through his binoculars he read the message indicated by signal flags, ‘preparing for attack from the air’.
    The courier launch sped to the landing stage and John hurried aboard. By now the shore guns had opened up and the bombers were approaching.
    “After handing my bag to the duty officer I started running up the stairway to my battle station in the command bridge,” John remembers.
    “Halfway, I paused and scanned the approaching formation to get an idea of their numbers. I had to give it up because they had the sun right behind them, but there seemed to be an endless stream of bombers.” Resuming his climb, John was aware of bombs already exploding in the water nearby. Then the bomb which Bruce Buckham recalled as landing ‘amidships’ hit the bridge. It was the end of the battle for John Troeger.
    The explosion blasted him over the side. By the time he collected his senses the noise was already deafening. Then as Bruce Buckham recalled, there was ‘one tremendous explosion on board’ when a bomb hit the ammunition store aft. 

    “Bruce Buckham was right, you know. The Tirpitz did seem to leap out of the water as the magazine went up. It blew a huge hole through the side of the ship,” John said.
    “By this time there were men everywhere in the water, it was bitterly cold and black smoke was billowing over everything. Then I remember another bomb hitting the water-line alongside. “The suction pulled the ship sideways. It stayed there for what seemed a very long time, but water was pouring in through the hole in the side and it suddenly keeled over and slid bow first into the harbour sand. That was the end of the Tirpitz, exactly as Bruce Buckham described it.”
    John was eventually rescued by a motor torpedo boat, along with a host of others. “We were crowded on the deck when a single aircraft came back and circled over head a couple of times at very low level. I remember saying to the men next to me "There you are, they’ve come back to make sure we are really finished. It must have been the camera plane.”
    Taken to Tromso, the grimy, frozen seamen were cleaned up, given dry clothes and an injection against infection before being ordered back to the Tirpitz for rescue work. “We spent from ten at night until four next afternoon, cutting holes in the two-inch thick nickel-steel keel to free engineers trapped by the water. It was hard work in the wintry conditions but in one case I saw 45 men climb out of a hole we cut.” There were 1600 men lost from the 3500 aboard the Tirpitz but the rescue work undoubtedly kept the number down that night.
    It was the end of the war for seaman Troeger and it remains a vivid episode in his memory, having the same lasting impact on the young German as it did on the young Australian running camera duty.
    John holds no grudge against the men who destroyed the Tirpitz. “The war was a long time ago and the Bruce Buckhams and the John Troegers were doing their respective duties,” he said. “I hope one day to meet Bruce Buckham, not as a former enemy, but as a fellow BHP employee.”
Reproduced from the BHP Review Magazine.

EDITORIAL COMMENT    Having spoken with Bruce Buckham and basically re-visited that time, I have found that these two men eventually got to meet each other. Many experiences, stories, and views were exchanged and a friendship developed that has been longstanding.