page_title: Operation Goodwood (naval)
section_title: Aftermath
hierarchical_section_title: Operation Goodwood (naval) / Aftermath
caption_attribution_description: English: The gravestone of Sub-Lieutenant (A) Clive Eustace Woodward at the Commonwealth War Graves section in the main cemetery in Tromsø, Troms, Norway.
context_page_description: Operation Goodwood was a series of British carrier air raids conducted against the German battleship Tirpitz at her anchorage in Kaafjord in occupied Norway during late August 1944. It was the last of several attacks made by the Home Fleet during 1944 which sought to damage or sink Tirpitz and thereby eliminate the threat it posed to Allied shipping. Previous raids on Kaafjord conducted by Fleet Air Arm aircraft had involved only one air attack; in Operation Goodwood several attacks were made in a single week. The Royal Navy hoped that these raids would wear down the formidable German defences.
  The British fleet departed its base on 18 August and launched the first raid against Kaafjord on the morning of 22 August. The attack failed, and a small raid that evening inflicted little damage. Attacks were conducted on 24 and 29 August and were also failures. Tirpitz had been hit by two bombs during the raid on 24 August, but neither caused significant damage. British losses during Operation Goodwood were 17 aircraft to all causes, a frigate sunk by a submarine, and an escort carrier badly damaged. German forces suffered the loss of 12 aircraft and damage to 7 ships.
context_section_description: Following the 29 August raid, the British learned from Ultra signals intelligence that Tirpitz had not sustained any significant damage during Operation Goodwood. In public statements the Royal Navy claimed to have damaged or sunk 19 German warships during the attacks on Kaafjord, but did not report damage to Tirpitz.
  During the final days of Operation Goodwood, Royal Navy planners decided not to order further Fleet Air Arm operations against Kaafjord. The planners accepted that the Germans were now able to cover Tirpitz in smoke before Barracudas could reach the battleship, and these aircraft could not carry bombs large enough to inflict heavy damage. Further consideration was given to attacking Kaafjord using Mosquitos launched from aircraft carriers, but the light bombers continued to be in short supply and it was judged that they were not well suited to the task. Moreover, there was a growing need to transfer the carriers to the Pacific to strengthen Britain's contribution to the war against Japan.
  As Tirpitz was still considered a threat to shipping, the British Chiefs of Staff Committee and the Supreme Allied Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, decided in late August to conduct further attacks against her using Royal Air Force heavy bombers. On 15 September, a force of Avro Lancasters attacked Kaafjord after refuelling at bases in northern Russia and inflicted irreparable damage on the battleship. Following this raid she sailed to an anchorage near Tromsø to be used as an immobile coastal defence battery. Another heavy bomber attack on 29 October caused only minor damage. In a third raid mounted on 12 November Tirpitz was struck by several Tallboy bombs and capsized, sinking with heavy loss of life.
  Historians have judged Operation Goodwood to have been a failure. Writing in 1961, the British official historian Stephen Roskill stated that the attacks marked the end of a "series of operations whose results can only be classed as intensely disappointing", and concluded that the possibility of sinking Tirpitz had been "remote" due to the shortcomings of the Barracudas and their armament. Similarly, Norman Polmar argued in 1969 that Operation Goodwood was "perhaps the most striking failure of the F.A.A. (Fleet Air Arm) during World War II and can be directly attributed to the lack of effective aircraft – the Barracudas were too slow and could not carry large enough bombs to make effective attacks". More recently, Mark Llewellyn Evans judged the results of Operation Goodwood to have been "pathetic", and Mark Bishop concluded that "the Fleet Air Arm's greatest operation of the war ... ended in failure".
caption: A New Zealand airman who flew from HMS Formidable and was killed during Operation Goodwood is interred at the Commonwealth War Graves section of Tromsø's main cemetery.[51]
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