A flight duration of 11 hours was reported to be the longest to date for the heavily loaded Lancasters. With mountains screening the Lancasters' approach from enemy radar, the Tirpitz was caught by surprise and her smoke-screens were late in starting. One Tallboy smashed through the Tirpitz's forecastle and burst deep in her hull. The shock caused by the explosion of this bomb or possibly other bombs which were near misses, also damaged the ship's engines.
The Tirpitz is no longer seaworthy.
All Lancasters returned safely to the airfield in Russia.

Flying Officer F. Levy of 617 Squadron crashed in Norway two days later while returning to England, with eleven men on board. In all, One Lancaster was lost in Norway
and ten crash landed or were abandoned in Russia.

October 15, 1944. Tirpitz sails at 8 knots to Tromsö fiord, anchoring off Haaköy Island.

...Tirpitz had been transferred near Tromso, barely within range of Lossiemouth, Scotland
and would require a 2250 mile flight operation.

The next days were a fever of activity getting ready for the Tirpitz. The brunt of it fell on Air vice Marshall, Ralph Cochrane , Wing commander J.B.('Willie')Tait, Wing Commander Brown and the ground crews. With tests and graphs, Tait worked it out that from Lossiemouth they could just reach the Tirpitz in Tromso with a bare_and a very bare_ safety margin in case of adverse winds, but it meant loading in so much fuel they would be taking off nearly two tons over the maximum permissible weight. He agreed to try if they could have Merlin 24 engines...they were more powerful than the engines in the 617 Lancasters. There were some of these engines in 5 Group, scattered among odd aircraft in various squadrons at other airfields. For three days and nights, the ground crews worked non-stop in shifts, taking the Merlin 24's out of aircraft all over Lincolnshire, bringing them back to Woodhall, pulling the 617 engines, then installing the Merlin 24's ..

The conditions in Norway, are such that after Nov 26, the sun the sun does not rise above the horizon at Tromso, though for a few days, there would be just enough twilight at midday for bombing. Beyond that no daylight till spring..

October 28, 1944 the word came, and thirty-six Lancasters of 617 and 9 Squadrons flew north to a bleak field near Lossiemouth. At midnight a Mosquito (recon aircraft) over Tromso radioed that the wind was veering to the east, and in drizzling rain, at the deathly hour of 1 a.m., the Merlin 24's straining on emergency power, dragged the overburdened Lancasters off the ground.

October 29, Thirty-seven aircraft (one of which was a Lancaster film unit from 463 Sqn)
take-off from Lossiemouth, Scotland in an attempt to sink Tirpitz.

October 29, 617 Squadron Pilot Bill Carey's Lancaster, "Easy Elsie" crash-lands
in Northern Sweden:

Carey's Lancaster had been hit by flak on the first run; the starboard outer engine stopped and petrol streamed out of a riven tanks, luckily without catching fire. He turned back on three engines for another run and the cloud foiled him. He tried again, and again ploughing steadfastly through the flak till, on the sixth run, an almost desperate bomb aimer let his "Tallboy" go with faint hope..

It was then, that Wing Commander Willie Tait had ordered everyone
to dive to 1000 feet to gain up speed and steer for home..

As Carey's Lanc screamed down he passed a small island; a single gun on it pumped a shell into another engine, which died instantly; fuel was streaming out of another burst tank (miraculously no fire again), and then the hydraulics burst and the bomb doors and undercarriage flopped down. The two good engines on full power just held her in the air against the drag. The flight engineer quickly calculated they could not make it home with the remaining gas. Carey turned the winged plane back towards land, and staggering through the air a hundred feet up, they threaded through a mountain pass and slowly crossed the barren country. Half an hour later the navigator said they were over Sweden. The two engines were dangerously hot and Carey crash-landed in a bog near Porjus. The Lancaster tilted frighteningly on her nose,
poised a moment and settled back, climbing out all crew survived.

The crew of [*]"Easy Elsie" temporarily interned in Sweden,
subsequently all returned to England.

[*]A detailed account of Carey's Lancaster, Easy Elsie and his 'Swedish holiday'
is documented in, 617 Squadron-- Dambusters at War, by Tom Bennett

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