PRECISELY 69 years ago this coming Wednesday, a daring Allied air strike crippled one of Hitler’s greatest battleships as it hid among the fjords of occupied Norway.

Among those taking part in the mission against the Tirpitz was dive bomber navigator Sub Lieutenant Roy Eveleigh, a 22-year-old Swindon railway worker’s son who would go on to reach the rank of captain in the Fleet Air Arm of the Royal Navy.

His account of the strike was published in the Adver on Saturday, April 8, 1944. The young crews referred to their bombs as ‘cookies’.

“The sun was coming up behind a bank of distant cumulus cloud as we reached the coast,” he said.

“We could see the steep, snow-covered mountains gradually turn a pale shade of pink, while the rest of the scene was one of pale blue sky and flat sea.”

The 2,000-tonne Tirpitz had four huge weapon turrets, each holding a pair of guns capable of firing shells 15 inches in diameter.

It was under the ultimate command of Grand Admiral Karl Donitz, the navy chief who would briefly replace Hitler as Fuhrer after the dictator killed himself in 1945. Donitz had ordered the vessel to Norway in order to harass Allied shipping and deter a possible invasion of the Nazi-occupied Scandinavian country.

There had been several earlier Allied attacks on the Tirpitz, the most successful of which was carried out by midget submarines the previous September. By April of 1944 the ship was fit for operations again and another attack – Operation Tungsten – was ordered.

Mr Eveleigh was a navigator on a Barracuda dive-bomber carried by HMS Furious, and his description of the early morning attack was vivid: “The Tirpitz was actually in Kaa Fjord, and in the Lang Fjord we could see three destroyers and a merchant ship. Though they didn’t try to stop us, it is probable that they gave warning of our approach.

“During the next five minutes we swung round a set of hills half-a-mile high, re-forming for the attack as we went. We were then approaching the fjord between snow-covered hills 3,000 feet high.

“Down in the fjord was the Tirpitz, behind nets. The enemy started a smoke screen going but it was ineffective. As I shouted the first burst of flak came up at us and I could see another destroyer farther down the fjord obscuring itself with the smoke of its own barrage. I remember thinking how unreal it looked – and then a lot of heavy stuff exploded nearby and we were jolted by the explosion.

“We led the fourth and last wave of our strike in. I saw a huge flash which softened into a dull steady glow on the Tirpitz amidships. Then we dropped our own cookie and turned violently away to starboard.”

The ship was badly damaged, although its final destruction would not come until another mission later that year.

Mr Eveleigh, we reported, had attended the Lethbridge and Commonweal schools, studied maths and sciences at Swindon College and joined the Civil Service and the Whitehall Home Guard before joining the Fleet Air Arm in 1941.

He was the only son of Mr and Mrs LG Eveleigh, who lived in The Mall. His father was an assistant storekeeper at the railway Works and his mother a member of the Women’s Voluntary Service.

No further mention of him is made in the Adver’s archives, but a report of his death, aged 76, appeared in the July 1998 edition of Navy news.

Sub Lieutenant Eveleigh was to give 30 years’ service, qualifying as a pilot in 1947 and winning the Distinguished Service Cross for actions in a Sea Hawk jet fighter against Egyptian Migs during the 1956 Suez crisis.

His last posting was the command of the HMS Goldrest Airbase in Wales.

If anybody can tell us more about him, we’d be delighted to hear from them.