From early 1942, Tirpitz had been the Allies' most persistent naval headache. Stationed in Norwegian fjords, the battleship was capable of overwhelming any convoy escort or breaking out into the North Atlantic. She rarely moved, but her mere presence forced the British to keep a powerful fleet of capital ships at permanent readiness with the Home Fleet. Several air and naval attacks in 1942 and 1943 failed to inflict damage. In September 1943, two midget submarines managed to plant charges beneath her hull during Operation Source, putting her out of action for six months. When Operation Tungsten caught Tirpitz by surprise on 3 April 1944, fifteen bombs struck the ship and 122 of her crew were killed, yet the battleship survived. Four more carrier raids between April and July achieved nothing: bad weather, inexperienced replacement aircrew, and Kaafjord's smoke generators defeated every attempt.

Admiral Sir Henry Moore, commanding the Home Fleet, knew the Barracudas were too slow. Their ponderous approach gave the fjord's defenders ten minutes to blanket Tirpitz in artificial smoke. The Admiralty's counter-proposal was blunt: attack repeatedly over several days and exhaust the smoke generators' fuel supply. Moore disagreed but obeyed. The attack fleet sailed on 18 August, timed to also protect Convoy JW 59 heading for the Soviet Union. Bad weather delayed the first strike to 22 August, when 84 aircraft launched from three fleet carriers. They achieved surprise, but only because the raid accomplished nothing before the smoke rolled in. A small evening harassing raid inflicted little further damage. That same day, the U-boat U-354 torpedoed the escort carrier Nabob and sank the frigate Bickerton, adding naval losses to the aerial ones.

The heaviest blow came on 24 August, when 85 aircraft attacked after flying a deceptive route parallel to the coast. German radar picked them up at 3:41 pm, and Tirpitz's smokescreen activated immediately. Two bombs found the battleship. The first, a 500-pound weapon dropped by a Hellcat, exploded on the roof of her 'Bruno' main gun turret, destroying a quadruple anti-aircraft mount but failing to penetrate the turret itself. The second also failed to cause significant damage. British fighters strafed surrounding ships and shore targets, destroying Tirpitz's last seaplane and damaging patrol boats, minesweepers, and a radar station. The German command called it 'undoubtedly the heaviest and most determined' attack yet and requested fighter reinforcements, but the Luftwaffe had none to spare. Six British aircraft were lost. The final strike on 29 August added nothing meaningful; the smokescreen held, and the Barracudas dropped blind.

Ultra signals intelligence confirmed what Moore already suspected: Tirpitz had suffered only superficial damage. The Royal Navy publicly claimed 19 German warships damaged or sunk but said nothing about the battleship. Historians have been less generous. Stephen Roskill, the official British naval historian, described Goodwood as ending a 'series of operations whose results can only be classed as intensely disappointing.' Norman Polmar called it 'perhaps the most striking failure of the F.A.A. during World War II,' attributable to Barracudas that were too slow and carried bombs too small. In late August, responsibility shifted to RAF Bomber Command. On 15 September, Avro Lancasters armed with massive Tallboy bombs flew from bases in northern Russia and inflicted irreparable damage on Tirpitz during Operation Paravane. A second raid on 12 November finally capsized and sank the battleship outside Tromso with heavy loss of life, ending a pursuit that had consumed years of Allied effort.