High above the Arctic Circle but warmed by the Gulfstream, the port of Tromsø is gateway to northern Norway. It is also final resting place of the German battleship Tirpitz. She was sunk by a formation of British Lancaster bombers on November 12, 1944. Air attacks have doomed other great warships — the Yamato, Bismarck, Prince of Wales —to Davey Jones’ Locker. Memo to Trump: Battle wagons have become an extinct naval species.
Only they are now being recycled by our 47th president. As millions of his countrymen stand to lose medical coverage, POTUS wants to build us two “Trump Class” battleships.
Along with Greenland, the ships are deemed needed for national defense, another sign that George III was not the first mad king to rule over America. Sixteen-inch guns can give off a thunderous salute, to match an aerial flyover. Our POTUS specializes in strategic bling.
The Secretary of War, in letting shipbuilding contracts for the Trump’s warships, should flag certain design features. The Brits laid out a class of fast, powerful warships early in the 20th century, fast and lethal. But they had a flaw — insufficient armor on the ships’ upper decks.
The British lost three battle cruisers in the 1916 Battle of Jutland. An armor-piercing shell from Bismarck, in the 1941 Battle of Denmark Strait, penetrated the aft magazine of H.M.S. Hood and blew up the pride of the Royal Navy. Only three men of 1,403 aboard survived.
Donald Trump is much like the Hood. Don’t laugh. He is of great firepower, able to rain down fire on a target using social media. (But he blows up at incoming, witness explosions at Saturday Night Live, Alex Baldwin and Jimmy Kimmel.) Four years out of power did not yield a retrofit.
Tirpitz spent much of World War II lurking in Norwegian fjords, heavily camouflaged against aerial assault. How could we ever conceal a Trump Class battleship dressed up in decorative gold and pink?
The Hood got off thunderous salvoes, audible from English shores as she did training maneuvers between the wars. Even Bismarck shook at her own firepower. And therein lies a technical problem of keeping recoil from shattering decorative chandeliers that will surely be standard on a Trump Class battleship.
Tirpitz did a convoy pursuit in June of 1942, not sinking anything and coming under British aerial assault. She fought off the R.A.F. with aid of escort destroyers, and two attacking planes were shot down. As the battleship maneuvered, dodging attacker torpedoes, furious dispute broke out on the bridge between Captain Topp and Admiral Ciliax.
Similar command decisions will arise when a Trump Class battleship sails in harm’s way. Pete Hegseth is incompetent to command a rowboat. And what if a battleship captain shows signs of dementia, or the dismissal of ship’s officers leaves nobody of any ability at the helm? A Trump Class battleship would also be at risk if armor were sacrificed to supply a soft floor on the bridge to protect officers’ feet against Trumpian bone spurs.
Tirpitz had an ignominious end. In words of naval historian Ludovic Kennedy, the great warship “lived an invalid’s life and died a cripple’s death.”
This article also appears in Cascadia Advocate.
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