THE TIRPITZ
and the Battle for the North Atlantic

VG+/VG+. Slight fading to jacket spine; very slight chipping to spine heel and head. Jacket in nice condition overall, protected by mylar. Original "$3.50" price still intact on jacket flap. (NY: WW Norton & Co., 1953). First Edition. Photographs, bibliography, index, 235 pages.

Centering on the dramatic story of the great German battleship, Tirpitz, whose very existence tied up an entire Allied fleet and occupied an air force, David Woodward tells the tale of the last days of the German surface navy. It is a graphic account of the desperate struggle by Hitler's fleet to choke off the huge convoys headed for Russia. It was a wild series of actions in which Allied merchant ships were sent to the bottom by the score, in which aircraft attacked dreadnoughts and minesweepers attacked cruisers.

It began with the rebuilding of the German fleet in peacetime by falsifying displacement figures and breaking ties. It moved into action highlighted by the pursuit and death of the Bismarck. It ended with the Tirpitz. And in between it included the last great surface engagement fought in the western world -- possibly for all time. This was the glorious and terrible battle between a British battleship and the Scharnhorst. It was fought far north of the Arctic circle on the day after Christmas, through high seas and the long night. It ended finally when the Scharnhorst, outnumbered at last and blinded, glowing red with her own fires, went under, leaving a handful of survivors afloat in the freezing seas.

Woven throughout the book is the story of the Tirpitz, the biggest warship in the western hemisphere. The Allies did not dare leave her alone. She was under incessant attack -- by high-level bombers and mountain skimmers, by midget submarines which penetrated the barrier nets in her Norwegian fiord; by British frogmen who were smuggled through to her base in the double-bottoms of small fishing vessels. While in port, she was under the constant watch of the Norwegian underground, and when she went to sea the power of the Allied fleet went for her.

She survived until the end of 1944 when she was finally caught almost defenseless (the Luftwaffe failed to cover her) by the famous Dam-Buster squadron of the R.A.F. They dropped two 10,000-pound bombs through her deck and she rolled over slowly in Tromso fiord, carrying nearly 1000 men to their deaths. It was one of the turning points of the war.

$35.00