Kriegsmarine Operation 'Sizilien' EK Citation

[hucks216]

I have had this EK II citation for a fair while (at least 4 years) and originally bought it as at the time I didn't have a signature of Erich Bey, For that reason I was pleased to get it but never really bothered to check the possible background for it.

Then a few days ago I was going through my citation folders and saw it again and wondered if it would be possible to figure out what it was awarded for. Checking http://www.german-navy.de/ there is a brief mention of a particular operation but no dates so checking another site I was able to confirm that it is a high probability that the citation was awarded to Leutnant z.See Burmeister from the destroyer Z30 for Operation Sizilien which was the small Naval raid against Spitzbergen and marked the only time that Tirpitz fired her main armament in anger which occured just 8 days before the awarding of this citation.

(Taken from... http://www.bismarck-...ersizilien.html )...

Two hundred & forty kilometers (150 miles) north of Bear Island and 640 kilometers (400 miles) north of Kåfjord and North Cape, the most northerly point of Norway and the Continent of Europe, is South Cape, the most southerly point of the island of Spitzbergen. A bleak island which before the war had some 3,000 inhabitants, Norwegian and Russian, whose livelihood had been coal mining, its inhabitants had been evacuated by the Allies in August 1941 and the mines smashed. A month later the Germans had set up a weather reporting station on the island. A rival Norwegian station had been established in the summer of 1942 and the Germans had been forced to evacuate their weathermen by submarine.On 6 September 1943 squadron consisting of Tirpitz, Scharnhorst and 9 destroyers (Erich Steinbrinck, Karl Galster, Hans Lody, Theodor Riedel, Z27, Z29, Z30, Z31, Z33) weighed anchor in Altenfjord and Kåfjord and headed for Spitzbergen. The objective was to attack the enemy base on Spitzbergen. The mission was codenamed Operation "Sizilien". At dawn on 8 September 1943 Tirpitz and Scharnhorst opened fire with their main armament against the two 3 in guns which comprised the defences of Barentsburg and the destroyers ran inshore with landing parties. Before noon it was all over. Some prisoners had been taken, a supply dump destroyed, the wireless station wrecked and the landing parties had returned on board. The German ships returned safely to Altenfjord and Kåfjord 9 September 1943 at 1730 . For the only time in her existence Tirpitz had fired her main armament offensively at low trajectory. Although those on board were not to know it, Tirpitz had carried out her last operation. In the 14 months remaining to her, she was to be nothing but a target for attack.

Edited June 26, 2012 by hucks216