Welcome to my blog. I am a former local journalist who now works in PR and a Conservative and community activist in Woking and Horsell. This blog will keep updated on local issues as well as my interests and quirky news stories.
The fearsome Tirpitz
Today is the 56th anniversary of the part of Operation Source, the secretive mission to destroy German battleships in Norway, that saw direct hits on the Tirpitz .
It’s difficult to imagine getting into an X-Class midget submarine and being towed across the North Sea before being let loose and submerging. Then travelling at a painfully slow 2 knots towards a target many times bigger and more powerful than you before placing charges in a dangerous operation that leaves you vulnerable and escaping again as mind-crushingly slowly as you arrived, all the time looking over your shoulder and not knowing whether your pick-up craft has been lost.
There was no “Quit now” button for the crews to press, no shortcut out of that situation. Some men who went on the mission to destroy Tirpitz – a formidable battleship every bit as superior as her sister Bismark to anything the Royal Navy possessed – never returned and one craft’s fate remains a mystery to this day.
I think it is good sometimes to remember the people whose courage and duty, due to the missions they carried out, are not so widely recognised.
