Home > German battleship Scharnhorst

Scharnhorst was a 31,100 ton Gneisenau class battleship of the German Kriegsmarine, named to commemorate the World War I armoured cruiser SMS Scharnhorst, which was in turn named after the Prussian general Gerhard von ScharnhorstGerhard Johann David von Scharnhorst ( November 12, 1755 June 28, 1813) was a Prussian general, Chief of the Prussian General Staff, noted for both his writings and his leadership during the Napoleonic Wars. Born at Bordenau near Hanover, of a farmer stoc

The ship was built at WilhelmshavenWilhelmshaven is a town in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated at the western coast of the Jadebusen, which is a bay of the North Sea. Population: 89,000 (1999). History Wilhelmshaven is a very young town, since it was founded in 1869 by the Prussian ki, GermanyThe Federal Republic of Germany ( German: Bundesrepublik Deutschland is one of the world's leading industrialized countries, located in the middle of the European Union. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark and the Baltic Sea, to the east, launched in October 1936 under the Hitler regime's massive rearmament program, and commissioned in January 1939. After initial service, in mid-1939 she was modified, with a new mainmast located further aft and her straight bow replaced by a "clipper bow" to improve her seakeeping. However, her relatively low freeboard ensured that she was always very "wet" when at sea.

War began before Scharnhorst's modification work was completed. Her first wartime operation was a sweep into the IcelandThe Republic of Iceland is an island nation in the northern Atlantic Ocean, located between Greenland and Scotland, northwest of the Faroe Islands. Lydveldid Island ( In Detail) (Full size) National motto: none Official languageNone. Icelandic de facto''.- FaroesThe Faroe Islands ( Faroese: Foroyar meaning "Sheep Islands") are a group of islands in the north Atlantic Ocean between Scotland and Iceland. They are an autonomous region of the kingdom of Denmark. Since 1948 they have had self-government in almost all passage in late November 1939 with her sister Gneisenau in which the British armed merchant cruiser Rawalpindi was sunk. In the spring of 1940 Scharnhorst and Gneisenau covered the invasion of Norway. They engaged the British battlecruiser Renown on 9 April 1940, and sank the carrier HMS Glorious and two destroyers on 8 June at around 64 N off Norway. In the latter action, Scharnhorst was torpedoed. She was further damaged by a bomb a few days later and was under repair for most of the rest of 1940.

From 22 January until 22 March 1941, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau operated in the Atlantic, sinking 22 ships and severely threatening British seaborne supply lines. While at Brest, France, following this operation, the German ships were the targets of repeated air attacks. The resulting damage kept them non-operational into late 1941, when it was decided to concentrate German surface naval power in the Norwegian theater as a result of the Commando raid on Vaagsoy. Since it was too risky to attempt the redeployment via the North Atlantic, on 11- 13 February 1942, the two battleships and the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen made a daring " Channel Dash " through the English Channel to reach Germany. Caught off guard, the British were unable to stop the ships with air and surface attacks, though both Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were damaged by mines during the later part of the voyage.

Repair work, a grounding and her always troublesome steam powerplant kept Scharnhorst out of action until March 1943, when she went to northern Norway to join the battleship Tirpitz and other German ships threatening the convoy route to the USSR. Training exercises over the next several months climaxed in a bombardment of Spitzbergen on 8 September 1943.

On Christmas day, 1943, Scharnhorst and several destroyers put to sea to attack convoys north of Norway. Unfortunately for the Germans, their orders were decoded by the British, who sent a superior force to intercept. The escorting Royal Navy cruisers Belfast, Norfolk, and HMS Sheffield effectively kept Scharnhorst away from the convoys until the reinforcements arrived. The German escorting destroyers returned to their base, while Scharnhorst was cut off by the Battle group headed by the British battleship Duke of York and her escorting cruisers and destroyers. In a three-hour battle in the frigid Arctic seas north of North Cape, the German battleship was battered by gunfire and sunk by 12 torpedoes. There were 36 survivors of her crew of some 1,968 men.

Scharnhorst's wreck was located at 300 m depth 70 nm north of North Cape and photographed by a Norwegian Navy underwater exploration group in the year 2000.

This article is mainly derived from a public domain publication of the Naval Historical Center, Department of the Navy [1].