Scharnhorst

Scharnhorst, 31,000-ton German battle-cruiser with a main armament of nine 28 cm. (11 in.) guns. With another battle-cruiser, Gneisenau, she sank the British armed merchant cruiser Rawalpindi in the North Sea in November 1939 and the British carrier Glorious and her two escorting destroyers at the end of the Norwegian campaign in June 1940.

Early in 1941 she broke out into the Atlantic with Gneisenau and together they sank 22 merchantmen before entering Brest in March. They were subsequently damaged by bombing raids and remained there until the following February when, in a daring operation, they returned to Germany via the English Channel (seeCERBERUS).

Scharnhorst was badly damaged by mines during the operation, but in March 1943 she moved to Norway and on Christmas Day that year sailed to attack the Arctic convoy JW55B off North Cape. Aided by ULTRA, intelligence and other signals the C-in-C of the British Home Fleet, Admiral Fraser, who was aboard the battleship Duke of York, ordered 10th Cruiser Squadron to place itself between the battle-cruiser and the convoy. In what was later called the battle of North Cape, Scharnhorst twice tried to attack the convoy but each time was driven off by the cruisers. Thwarted, she turned for home but was tracked by radar and then cut off by Fraser and his heavy squadron. At 1722 on 26 December Scharnhorst signalled that she was surrounded. Shells and torpedoes poured into her and at 1745 she sank with the loss of all but 36 of her crew of more than 2,000. See also warships and sea power.