Raid on Spitsbergen

8 September 1943, Spitsbergen, Svalbard

German success; the settlements destroyed, but reoccupied within weeks

Small Norwegian garrisons held the coal mines and weather stations on Spitsbergen. In Operation Zitronella, Tirpitz, Scharnhorst and nine destroyers carried a battalion of infantry north from Altafjord and arrived off Isfjorden on 8 September 1943. Tirpitz, flying a British ensign as she came in, fired her main guns at the Norwegian battery, the only time she ever fired them at a target on land or sea. The destroyers landed the troops at Barentsburg and Longyearbyen, and the garrison's few guns hit several of them before they were silenced. The Germans burned the coal heaps, power plants and stores, took dozens of prisoners and left the same day. It was the only time Tirpitz fired in anger. Norwegian troops were back within weeks, and two weeks later the X-craft attacked Tirpitz in Kåfjord.