Qualla: German Battleship Scharnhorst

German Battleship Scharnhorst: Introduction

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Thirty-six men survived. Out of a crew of 1,968 aboard the German battleship Scharnhorst, only 36 were pulled from the frigid waters of the Norwegian Sea on the evening of December 26, 1943 -- thirty by the destroyer Scorpion, six by Matchless. Neither the ship's captain, Fritz Hintze, nor the task force commander, Rear Admiral Erich Bey, was among them, though both were reportedly seen in the water after the ship went down. Scharnhorst sank with her propellers still turning, the last German capital ship to fight a pitched battle against the Royal Navy.

German Battleship Scharnhorst: Built for Speed, Armed for War

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Scharnhorst was laid down at the Kriegsmarinewerft dockyard in Wilhelmshaven on June 15, 1935, and launched on October 3, 1936. Completed in January 1939, she was classified alternately as a battleship and a battlecruiser -- a distinction that reflected the compromises in her des...

German Battleship Scharnhorst: From the Atlantic to the Channel

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Scharnhorst's war began in November 1939, when she sank the armed merchant cruiser Rawalpindi in a brief, violent engagement. The following spring, during Operation Weserubung -- the invasion of Norway -- Scharnhorst and Gneisenau engaged the British battlecruiser Renown and late...

German Battleship Scharnhorst: The Arctic and the Final Sortie

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

By early 1943, Scharnhorst had been transferred to northern Norway, where her presence alone threatened the Allied convoys carrying supplies to the Soviet Union. On Christmas Day 1943, she sailed from Altenfjord under Rear Admiral Bey's command to intercept Convoy JW 55B. What Be...

German Battleship Scharnhorst: The Last Salvo

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Scharnhorst's speed kept her alive through the morning and into the afternoon, but at 16:48, star shells from Belfast illuminated the German ship for Duke of York's gunners. The first salvo hit, disabling Scharnhorst's forward turrets. For the next three hours, she fought while r...