Nazaire out of action. This article appears in: Spring The year started disastrously for Britain, just as had ended badly for the United States. Malaya was the first to fall and, by February, the Japanese had taken Singapore and now had their eyes on Burma. But it was in the waters of the Atlantic that the greatest threats lay for the nation. After losing the Battle of Britain, Hitler shelved his invasion plans and decided to starve Britain into submission instead.
German U-boats began tearing the heart out of British merchant fleets as soon as they left the safety of American harbors, and when joined by warships such as the Bismarck, the situation became even more desperate.
Fortunately, the Bismarck was eliminated in May , but by early , the heavily armored German battleship Tirpitz was completing trials off Norway; the prospect of an enhanced enemy presence on the surface as well as below the waves to destroy merchant shipping was driving even Prime Minister Winston Churchill into the depths of despair.
Added to this was the news that the formidable Kriegsmarine battlecruisers Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, and Prinz Eugen had managed to slip out of the harbor at Brest in northwest France, where they had been confined by the British Royal Navy, and sail up the English Channel to join the Tirpitz off the Norwegian coast. The Bismarck had been destroyed while aiming for the safety of St.
Nazaire and its Normandie dock, constructed in the s for the huge French liner of the same name. If the Tirpitz were to sail into the Atlantic, this would also be the only dock large enough to accommodate her. No other target is comparable to it. The presence of this huge beast off the Norwegian coast was also tying up Allied resources that could have been used to guard the Atlantic convoys.
