On 3 April 1944, in Operation Tungsten, two waves of Barracuda dive bombers from British carriers attacked the German battleship Tirpitz in Kaafjord, northern Norway. They took her by surprise and hit her repeatedly, killing 122 of her crew, but she was not sunk. On 3 April 1865 Union troops entered Richmond, the Confederate capital.
Operation Tungsten
3 April 1944 · 82 years ago
A threat in the far north
British midget submarines had damaged Tirpitz in September 1943, and by early 1944 she was again a threat to the Allied convoys to North Russia. Admiral Sir Bruce Fraser, commanding the Home Fleet, gave the attack to his second-in-command, Vice-Admiral Sir Henry Moore. The fleet carriers Victorious and Furious were to launch two strikes of 21 Barracudas each, escorted by fighters, among them Hellcats and Wildcats from escort carriers.1
The operation was timed to the passage of convoy JW.58. On 1 April, with the convoy faring well and the weather unusually favorable, Fraser advanced the attack by 24 hours.2
Sixty seconds
By 4.37 a.m. the first strike had formed up and set course for the target. Tirpitz was about to go to sea for trials: the nets were open and she was weighing anchor when the warning of approaching aircraft came, and the attack began before her defenses and smoke screen were ready. Surprise was complete. The fighters strafed her guns, and at 5.29 the Barracudas began to dive; within a minute the attack was over.3
The second strike took off about an hour after the first. One Barracuda failed to start and another crashed into the sea after taking off and was lost with all its crew. About an hour after the first attack the second wave came in; the smoke screen was now denser but did not greatly hinder the bombers, and again the attack lasted about a minute.4
Damage and losses
The counts of hits differ: Roskill's official history and the Admiralty's naval constructors give nine hits in the first attack and probably five in the second, the Royal Museums Greenwich 12 direct hits and one near miss. No bomb pierced her main armor, but the damage above it was widespread. Tirpitz suffered 438 casualties, 122 of them killed.5
Three Barracudas, one of them the bomber lost on take-off, and one fighter were lost. Estimates of how long Tirpitz was out of action range from about a month, the constructors' postwar conclusion, to about three months in Roskill. RAF Lancaster bombers later finished her off.6
Also on 3 April: Richmond, 1865
In 1865 the Confederate government abandoned Richmond on 2 April. Lieutenant General Richard S. Ewell had orders to destroy stores that could not be carried away; crowds looted the city, and fires spread through it during the night. Early on 3 April Union troops under Major General Godfrey Weitzel entered the city. They set to work putting out the fires, but a large part of the business district had burned. The campaign is told in our article on the siege of Petersburg.7
Jeju uprising, 1948: the April 3 incident and the killings that followed
3 April 1948 · 78 years ago
The Jeju uprising began when leftist insurgents on Jeju Island attacked police posts in protest against separate elections in US-occupied southern Korea. The South Korean government crushed the revolt with extreme violence, and many thousands of islanders were killed.
Read the full story of Jeju uprising, 1948: the April 3 incident and the killings that followed ›
