was hoped they could attack the Home Fleet if it intervened. The other four submarines operated near Murmansk to attack any ships from PQ 12 that escaped the battleship. Battle 6–7 March The German ships were not spotted by Norwegian resistance agents as they departed. The scheduled British photo reconnaissance flight over Trondheim was unable to be conducted on 6 March due to bad weather, and the additional air patrols over the Norwegian Sea that were meant to be conducted in this eventuality were not flown due to a shortage of aircraft. Contact was first made by the submarine at 6:01 pm on 6 March, with its crew spotting a single large warship while patrolling north of the exit to Trondheim Fjord. Seawolfs commanding officer Lieutenant Dick Raikes assumed this was Tirpitz. He attempted to attack the German force, but was outpaced and broke off. Seawolfs crew then sent a radio report of this contact, which indicated that the ship was either a cruiser or a battleship. The German battle group sailed north-east along the coast of Norway at for the remainder of 6 March and turned north at midnight. During 6 March PQ 12 passed through areas of loose pack ice. This forced it to take a south-easterly course for much of the day, and resulted in serious damage to the destroyer . QP 8 was also behind schedule, as it had been scattered by gales on 4 and 6 March. The Soviet cargo ship Izhora and the American vessel Larranga fell behind the convoy on 4 March and were unable to rejoin it. Tovey received Raikes's report shortly after midnight on the night of 6/7 March, and judged that Tirpitz was at sea. He believed that the battleship was probably being used to protect northern Norway from a landing, but was unable to discount the possibility that she would attack the convoys. Tovey wanted to use Curteis's force to protect the convoys while the ships under his direct command intercepted Tirpitz. The Admiralty refused to permit this and directed the Home Fleet to remain concentrated so that Victoriouss fighters could protect it from air attack. Tovey ordered the fleet to sail to the north to reach a position from which Victorious could launch search aircraft at 10 am. Icy conditions at that time made flying impossible, however. This was a missed opportunity for the British, as the planned