British attempts to eliminate the battleship proceeded relentlessly. In this way the Germans wanted to prevent the Tirpitz from suffering the same fate as her sister ship the Bismarck which had been hunted down and sunk in May 1941 by the Royal Navy. Early 1942, the Tirpitz was dispatched to Norway to pose as Fleet in Being and as such the battleship posed a threat to the Allied Arctic convoys sailing to and from the Soviet Union. In September 1941, her sea trials were temporarily suspended as Tirpitz joined the Baltenflotte, the German Baltic Fleet. After the vessel had been commissioned by her commander, Kapitän-zur-See Friedrich Karl Topp, and prior to her sea trials, the Tirpitz was targeted twice by British air raids which had just as little effect. ![]() Final assembly of the Tirpitz was only slightly delayed. These aerial attacks, launched from British airfields caused minor damage to the vessel. Even before the new vessel was commissioned on February 25, 1941, the British launched 15 air raids with Handley Page Hampden and Vickers Wellington twin-engine bombers, directly aimed at the Tirpitz which was berthed in the final assembly dock in Wilhelmshafen. ![]() The battleship was launched on April 1, 1939. Her keel was laid, construction number 128, on Novemat the Kriegsmarinewerft in Wilhelmshafen. Tirpitz was the second Bismarck class battleship that was built for the Kriegsmarine.
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