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PROUDLY SERVING KIMBERLEY AND AREA SINCE 1932 | Vol. 82, Issue 215 | www.dailybulletin.ca
Raining terror on the Tirpitz
F E R DY B E L L A N D
CAROLYN GRANT PHOTO
A very large crowd took in the Remembrance Day ceremony at Kimberley’s cenotaph on Tuesday, November 11. Above, a veteran salutes.
OAKLEY...
One morning in April, 1944, Philip “Bud” Abbott climbed into the cockpit of a Fairey Barracuda bomber, took off from the deck of the aircraft carrier Furious, joined a squadron of fighters circling overhead, and set off into aerial combat for the first time. The target of the attack by two Royal Navy squadrons was what British officers bitterly referred to as “the Iron Whore.” “We finally rounded the last turn at the far end of Kaafjord and actually saw the Tirpitz anchored in harbour,” Abbott told the Townsman last week. “There she was!” And then, all hell broke loose. The Tirpitz was the sister ship of the dreaded Bismarck, and was the largest battleship ever built by a European navy. Since the destruction of the Bismarck in 1941, the Tirpitz had been holed up in a Norwegian fjord, seldom venturing forth to attack Allied shipping, but still a great menace which kept allied warships tied up when they were needed elsewhere. “It really didn’t do any damage,” Abbott said. “But the whole time it was anchored in Norway it presented an enormous threat, to the point where
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it basically tied up the British Home Fleet in Scapa Flow, watching for this damned thing to come out. “And if it did come out and got into the shipping lanes, it would create enormous havoc. Quite a monster.” The Royal Naval Air Service Bud Abbott, wellknown around Cranbrook, joined the Royal Navy in 1941. “I was contemplating volunteering, and my first choice was the Navy,” he said. “I thought if I wasn’t accepted into the Navy that I’d try the Royal Air Force (RAF). I managed to end up in what you would call the Naval Air Force. So it was an ideal combination of the two — the Fleet Air Arm. I was chosen as a pilot, so I went into training for some time and starting flying later in 1941.” Abbott was assigned to convoy work in the North Sea and the Atlantic, doing anti-submarine patrol work. “We’d go halfway across the Atlantic and then back again, since we’d be met halfway by American or Canadian naval crews.” Over the next two years, Abbott flew many types of aircraft.
See ATTACK, Page 3
VOTE DARRYL OAKLEY
FOR KIMBERLEY COUNCIL
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DOakley@kimberley.ca