Building upon the expertise of the authors and historians of the Naval
Institute Press, the Naval History Special Editions are designed to
offer studies of the key vessels, battles, and events of armed conflict.
Using an image-heavy, magazine-style format, these Special Editions
should appeal to scholars, enthusiasts, and general readers alike.
In 1939 the battleship was the queen of the seas. Battleships were
designed to project power. They were the biggest and most powerful ships
afloat, and the yardsticks by which the world judged naval strength.
Within this context, the German battleship Tirpitz (sister ship of
Bismarck) was one of the most effective instruments of naval power
ever deployed. The British called her "The Beast". She spent the greater
part of the Second World War tucked away in isolated fjords north of the
Arctic Circle--where she became known as, "The Lonely Queen of the
North." She sortied only three times and never fired her guns at an
enemy warship. Yet, against this menace the British exerted unequaled
effort. At all times they kept a pair of modern battleships standing by
to face her should she sail; they built mini-submarines that could
operate in the waters of the fjords; they repeatedly massed aircraft
carrier strike forces in futile efforts to knock her from the war. At
last, they invented massive ordnance--the Tallboy bomb, the largest
non-nuclear explosive device of the war. Sending their heaviest bombers
against her, and after three years of sustained effort, the Beast was
sunk.
The remarkable career of this remarkable ship is the subject of this
authoritative and heavily illustrated Special Edition. It considers
Tirpitz's design, her construction, her historical context and all of
her operations. The power of this individual ship and the influence she
exerted on the entire course of the war makes for an enlightening
demonstration of the sometimes very unexpected way sea power can be
expressed.
