German battlecruiser Scharnhorst

Career
Ordered:	25 January 1934
Laid down:	15 June 1935
Launched:	3 October 1936
Commissioned:	7 January 1939
Fate:	Sunk in the Battle of North Cape on 26 December 1943
General Characteristics
Displacement:	31,552 tonnes (standard) 38,900 tonnes (full load)
Length:	235.4 m (772.3 ft) overall 229.8 m (753.9 ft) waterline
Beam:	30 m (98.4 ft)
Draft:	9.93 m (32.5 ft) at 37,500 long tons (38,100 tonnes)
Armament:	9 x 280 mm (11 inch) 12 x 150 mm (5.9 inch) 14 x 105 mm (4.1 inch) 16 x 37 mm 10 x 20 mm (later 38) 6 x 533mm (21 inch) torpedo tubes
Aircraft:	3 Arado Ar196A-3, 1 catapult
Propulsion:	3 Brown-Boveri geared turbines; 3 three-bladed propellers, 4.8 m (15.75 ft) diameter; 161,164 SHP (120.18 MW) = 33 kt
Range:	10,100 nm at 19 kt (18,700 km at 35 km/h)
Complement:	1,968 (60 officers, 1909 enlisted)

Scharnhorst was a famous World War II 31,500 tonne Gneisenau class battlecruiserThe battlecruiser classification came from the Royal Navy, the German Kriegsmarine classification was battleship. of the German Kriegsmarine, named after the Prussian general and army reformer Gerhard von Scharnhorst and to commemorate the World War I armoured cruiser SMS Scharnhorst. She usually sailed into battle accompanied by her sistership, the equally famous Gneisenau.

The ugly sisters - Scharnhorst and Gneisenau

The ship was built at Wilhelmshaven, Germany, launched on October 3, 1936, and commissioned on January 7, 1939. After initial service, she was modified in mid-1939, with a new mainmast located further aft and her straight bow replaced by an "Atlantic bow" to improve her seaworthiness. However, her relatively low freeboard ensured that she was always "wet" when at heavy seas. Her armour was equal to that of a battleship and if it hadn't been for her relatively small calibre guns she would have been classified as a battleship by the British. The German navy always classified Scharnhorst and Gneisenau as Schlachtschiffe (battleships). These two ships, considered handsome and fast, were invariably mentioned at the same time, and are fondly remembered as being "the ugly sisters" due to the fact they prowled together, and the havoc they wrought to British shipping.

Scharnhorst's nine 280 mm (11 inch), main guns, though possessing long range and quite good armor penetration power because of their high muzzle velocity, were no match for the 380 mm (15 inch) guns of most of the battleships of her day. The choice of armament was a leftover from their original design as "enlarged pocket battleships".

If a later proposal to upgrade the main armament to six 15-inch (380 mm) guns in three twin turrets, had been implemented, Scharnhorst would have been very formidable opponent, faster than any British capital ship and nearly as well armored. But due to priorities and constraints imposed by World War II and later the war situation, she retained her 11-inch guns throughout her career. Both Scharnhorst and her sister were designed for an extended range to allow for commerce raiding.

The War Begins

Scharnhorst's first wartime operation was a sweep into the Iceland-Faroes passage in late November 1939 with Gneisenau in which she sank the British Armed Merchant Cruiser HMS Rawalpindi. In the spring of 1940, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau covered the invasion of Norway. They engaged the British battlecruiser Renown on April 9, 1940, with no conclusive results.

They sank the British aircraft carrier HMS Glorious and her escorting destroyers Acasta and Ardent on June 8 at around 64 degrees N off Norway. In this action, Scharnhorst was torpedoed by Acasta. She was further damaged by a bomb a few days later and was under repair for most of the rest of 1940. In late December 1940, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau attempted to pass through the British blockade into the north Atlantic shipping lanes, but turned back when Gneisenau was damaged by heavy seas.

Sisters creating havoc

From January 22 until 22 March 1941, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau operated in the Atlantic under the command of Admiral Günther Lütjens. On 3 February they broke through the Denmark Strait and the next day reached southern Greenland. Convoy HX-106 was attacked on 8 February, but the attack was broken off when the Royal Navy battleship HMS Ramillies was sighted. Twelve days later, on 22 February, four Allied merchant ships were sighted and sunk east of Newfoundland. By operating in a region of the Atlantic where British air cover was weak to non-existent, the German ships manage to elude the Royal Navy and between the 7th and the 9th of March they attacked convoy SL-67 only breaking off the attack when the battleship HMS Malaya was sighted. An unescorted convoy of tankers, was attacked south-east of Newfoundland on the 15 March, and the next day another mixed convoy was detected and attacked with the sinking of 13 ships, 4 by the Scharnhorst. This was the last engagement before the battlecruisers entered the French port of Brest on the 22 March. The Scharnhorst sank 8 ships with total tonage of 49,300 out of the squadron's total of 22 ships with a combined tonage of 115,600Scharnhorst General Information from www.scharnhorst-class.dk.

The legend builds - Channel dash

While in Brest, the German ships were the targets of repeated air attacks. The resulting damage and trouble with defective boiler superheater tubes kept Scharnhorst non-operational into late 1941, when it was decided to send the two battlecruisers and the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen back to Germany. Since it was too risky to attempt via the North Atlantic, on 11-13 February 1942, the three big ships, escorted by dozens of minesweepers and other small craft, made a daring dash — the "Channel Dash" — through the English Channel, called Operation Cerberus, to reach Germany. Caught off guard and under heavy german radar jamming, the British were unable to stop the ships with air and surface attacks, though both Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were damaged by mines; Scharnhorst hitting two mines, off Flushing and Ameland, Gneisenau one mine off Terschelling.

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 Arctic convoys route to the Soviet Union. Training exercises over the next several months climaxed in a bombardment of Spitzbergen on September 8 1943, together with the Tirpitz.

The sinking of Scharnhorst - Battle of North Cape

On Christmas day 1943, Scharnhorst and several destroyers, under the command of Konteradmiral (Rear Admiral) Erich Bey, put to sea with the purpose of attacking the Russia-bound Arctic convoys JW 55B and RA 55A north of Norway. Unfortunately for the Germans, their orders were decoded by the British codebreakers and the Admiralty were able to direct their forces to intercept. The next day, in heavy weather and unable to locate the convoy, Bey detached the destroyers and sent them south, leaving Scharnhorst alone. Less than two hours later, the ship encountered the convoy's escort force of the cruisers HMS Belfast, Norfolk, and Sheffield. Under cover of snow, the British cruisers opened fire. After several exchanges of salvoes, Scharnhorst's radar was disabled, leaving her unable to return accurate fire in low visibility. Norfolk suffered minor damage.

In order to try to get around the cruisers to the convoy, Bey ordered Scharnhorst to take a southeast course away from the cruisers. In the late afternoon, the convoy's covering force, including the British battleship Duke of York, made contact and opened fire. Despite suffering the loss of its hangar and a turret, Scharnhorst temporarily increased its distance from its pursuers. The Duke of York caught up again and fired again - the second salvo wrecked the "A" turret, detonating the charges in "A" magazine which led to the same in "B" magazine. Partial flooding of the magazines quenched the explosions. No Royal Navy ship received any serious damage, though the flagship was frequently straddled, and one of her masts was smashed by an 11-inch shell. At 18:00 Scharnhorst's main battery went silent; at 18:20 another round from Duke of York destroyed a boiler room, reducing Scharnhorst's speed to about 22 knots and leaving her open to attacks from the destroyers. But battered and crippled as she was, her secondary armament was still firing wildly as the cruiser Jamaica and the destroyers Musketeer, Matchless, Opportune, and Virago closed and launched torpedoes. Duke of York fired her 77th salvo at 19:28 at Scharnhorst. Fifty-two torpedoes had been fired, but the last three by Jamaica at 19:37 from under two miles range was the final crippling blow. Scharnhorst sank at 19:45 hours on 26 December 1943 with her propellers still turning. Of a total complement of 1,968 men, only 36 survivors - none an officer - were rescued from the frigid seas; 30 by HMS Scorpion and 6 by Matchless.

HNoMS Stord (Royal Norwegian Navy) and HMS Scorpion fired their torpedoes from an easterly direction. Stord fired her eight torpedoes as she was about 1,500 yards from Scharnhorst, while also firing with her guns and scoring hits.

After the battle Admiral Fraser sent the following message to the Admiralty: "... Please convey to the C-in-C Norwegian Navy. Stord played a very daring role in the fight and I am very proud of her...". In an interview in The Evening News on 5 February 1944 the commanding officer of HMS Duke of York said: "... the Norwegian destroyer Stord carried out the most daring attack of the whole action...".

Later that evening Admiral Bruce Fraser briefed his officers on board Duke of York: "Gentlemen, the battle against Scharnhorst has ended in victory for us. I hope that if any of you are ever called upon to lead a ship into action against an opponent many times superior, you will command your ship as gallantly as Scharnhorst was commanded today".

(Ironically in 1793 Gerhard von Scharnhorst had served as a young lieutenant under the Duke of York in the Netherlands.)

On 3 October 2000, the submerged wreck of Scharnhorst was located at about 72° 16′ North latitude, 28° 41′ East longitude, approximately 70 nautical miles (130 km) north-northeast of North Cape at a depth of nearly 300 m and photographed by the Norwegian Navy.

References

This article is in large part derived from a public domain publication of the Naval Historical Center, Department of the U.S. Navy ^*.

Bibliography

Claasen, A.R.A., Hitler's Northern War: The Luftwaffe's Ill-Fated Campaign, 1940-1945. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2001. pp 228-234. ISBN 0-7006-1050-2
Willliam H. Garzke, Jr., and Robert O. Dulin, Jr., Battleships: Axis and Neutral Battleships in World War II (Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, 1985). Includes the design and operational histories, information on the guns, and other design and statistical information about the ship.
Siegfried Breyer, Battleships and Battlecruisers 1905-1970 (Doubleday and Company; Garden City, New York, 1973) (originally published in German as Schlachtschiffe und Schlachtkreuzer 1905-1970, J.F. Lehmanns, Verlag, Munchen, 1970). Contains various line drawings of the ship as designed and as built.
Fritz-Otto Busch, The Sinking of the Scharnhorst (Robert Hale, LTD., London, 1956) ISBN 0-8600-71308, the story of the Battle of North Cape and the final battle as told by a Scharnhorst survivor.

Notes

External links

Gneisenau class battlecruisers | World War II battleships of Germany | World War II cruisers of Germany | Shipwrecks in the North Sea

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