How many times do you hit a battleship to sink it?

The Tirpitz was a German battleship that actually saw little service. Its most exciting run out was to bomb and capture a weather station in Norway which was used as wartime propaganda, but once the Bismarck had been sunk, Hitler kept the Tirpitz was up north to attack the relief convoys we were sending to Russia (how times change).

Imagine a ship, a sixth of a mile long with 2000 sailors onboard! That was a ship on steroids but it was almost taken out by mini submarines manned by four people which had been towed to within a distance they could take themselves by a bigger submarine. Out of the five they tied over from UK, one slipped its ropes and vanished and another developed such technical problems it was scuttled. 

That left three.

They each held two sets of charges and their aim was to drop these under the ship and then, hopefully, retreat before they were shot and killed from the ship, blown up by their own charges or taken prisoner (and possibly shot). These men knew it was almost suicide but did it so as to save the convoys.

They did damage but it was all repaired and the dragon was back in its lair.

It took a fleet of specially adapted dam buster Lancasters to finally get the ship and turning turtle, it took with it all the german sailors. Only a few escaped by being cut free from the hull which was a foot thick. They had been told it was unsinkable. 

The museum is a collection of everything the local volunteers could gather and piece together in this museum. 

I was amazed by everything they found, from stamps with Hitler emblazoned on them to planks of wood still showing part of the red swastika. There were letters, photos, medals and uniforms as well as equipment salvaged from the ship before the salvage companies moved in.

We were really lucky with the weather; it began to cloud over as we drove back.

Tonight we're hunting for the Northern lights. Wonder if we'll get any breaks in the clouds so as to be able to see them? 🤞🍀🤞🤷‍♀️