Robert J. Maxwell
Hitler's battleship, the Tirpitz, was a magnificent vessel with state-of-the art optical equipment, weapons, and integrity. It spent most of the war holed up in its berth in a Norwegian fjord, but it was hardly useless. It posed such a threat to the trans-Atlantic shipping on which Britain depended for arms and sustenance, that a British fleet was pinned down at home in order to prevent its sailing.Surface raiders like the Tirpitz needed a port that was easy to slip in and out of and St. Nazaire on the German-occupied French coast was the most obvious. To block any possibility of the ship reaching St. Nazaire, an aging US-built British destroyer, HMS Campbelltown, sailed up the river and rammed the docks. The crew were killed or captured but the raid succeeded. Several tons of explosives in the bow went off hours later and blew everything up. The film doesn't mention it, but the soldiers had brought their families and girl friends on board for a celebration and everyone died.I suppose this is as good a point as any to register a complaint about the direction and editing of the film. Like so many others -- documentaries and features alike -- everything zips by at warp speed and the camera wobbles around and pans sloppily as if held by some wino. I wish this fad would come to a quick end. A few tons of explosives might help. But, honestly, the audience for a documentary like this will consist mostly of adults.Do we really need flashing images on the screen to keep our attention from wandering to the bowl of crisps? If we're that easily distracted or bored, how about some loud electronic percussion on the musical score, or some hip hop about a gangsta who's going to rip off our heads and pea down our neck cavities. Ugghh. (That represents a shudder of disgust.) I've been dying to get that off my chest. I thank you, and I thank IMDb.com, and my high school algebra teacher, Miss Velma Spurge, for the opportunity to do it.As for the story, the Tirpitz was finally sunk in the Norwegian fjord after forty independent attacks involving primitive miniature submarines, more sophisticated miniature submarines (viz., "Above Us the Waves") and bombing raids after bombing raids.This documentary was filmed only a few years ago. There aren't many survivors left on either side but it's good to see that the bitterness of the war years has faded with the passage of time and no one now rejoices at the deaths of some thousands of German sailors who manned the Tirpitz. Of course, war is war, but then, more important, death is death.
