Background
The Tirpitz was a sister to the battleship Bismarck of 42,900 tons, armed with eight 38 cm (15 inch) guns. She was designed to attack merchant shipping in the Atlantic, but the loss of the Bismarck and other commerce raiders led to instructions that she should be used for limited sorties only. In early 1942, the Tirpitz was sent to northern Norway, where she would remain for most of World War II. She was based mostly in Kåfjord, a branch of the Altafjord (formerly known as Altenfjord). She acted mainly as a fleet in being, threatening the Arctic convoys and tying up three British battleships that were needed elsewhere.
Read more about this topic: Operation Paravane
Famous quotes containing the word background:
“Pilate with his question “What is truth?” is gladly trotted out these days as an advocate of Christ, so as to arouse the suspicion that everything known and knowable is an illusion and to erect the cross upon that gruesome background of the impossibility of knowledge.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment; that background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality can disturb us.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“In the true sense one’s native land, with its background of tradition, early impressions, reminiscences and other things dear to one, is not enough to make sensitive human beings feel at home.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)