Thursday, 16 June 2011

The Tirpitz museum

On our way into Alta yesterday, we passed a road sign for the Tirpitz Museum. We have already discussed that the Tirpitz, the sister battleship to the more famous Bismarck, was sunk in a local fjord during WW2.



Following our visit to the rock carvings, we decided to  take a little detour to visit the museum on account of the Tirpitz's interesting history. Like the Bismarck, the Allies greatly feared the Tirpitz. It was set to Northern Norway to both deter an Allied invasion of Norway and to hinder the shipping conveys sent to the Soviet Union via the North and Barent Seas. The British made repeated attempts to sink the Tirpitz, inlcuding using James Bond style mini-submarines, and eventually succeeded in September 1943.

We had trouble locating the musum at first, since all we saw was a timber cabin, but upon closer inspection it turned out that was it. It was a fascinating expereince, with a film interviewing British, Norweigan and Germans who were involved with Tirpitz, and lots and lots of interesting artifacts related to the ship and its eventual sinking. However, what really made the trip worthwhile was the curator who was full of the little human stories behind the artifacts which really brought the whole experience to life. He had even traced some of the soldiers and local resistance people who had owned some of these artifacts and some (British, Norwegian and German) came to the museum opening in 2005 to recount their personal experiences.We were lucky that we were the only visitors at that point since it gave him the time to show us around. Half way throught the tour, we were joined by two other visitors, a Danish couple.

We left the museum way behind schedule, our next destination being Repvåg, a very small fishing village where we hoped to have some fresh seafood.

No comments:

Post a Comment