TIRPITZ. The First Voyage.

The photos in this book are taken from an unpublished album belonging to a member of the crew of the famous German Battleship Tirpitz. Wilhelm Rosenbaum served on the ship between April 1942 and March 1944. Unusually he was a member of the Luftwaffe and was aboard to fly the ship's Arado 196 seaplane. The photos cover Rosenbaum's military career from his early pre-war service in the RAD (German National Work Service), maritime training aboard the sailing ship Horst Wessel, as crew aboard the German armoured cruiser Schleswig Holstein, Tirpitz and finally as a prisoner of war in France. This unique collection gives a close up view of one of the most powerful ships of World War Two, a ship that proved to be a persistent thorn in the side of the Royal Navy until sunk in Norway towards the end of the war.